HEART TALKS

REV. B. CARRADINE, D. D.

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REV. B. CARRADINE, D. D.

HEART TALKS

BY

REV. B. CARRADINE, D. D.

M

AUTHOR OF

Sanctification — A Journey to Palestine — The Second Blessing in Symbol— The

Lottery Exposed — The Bottle — Church Entertainments — The Better

Way— The Old Man— Pastoral Sketches— The Sanctified

Life— And Revival Sermons.

M. W. KNAPP,

PUBLISHER OF GOSPEL LITERATURE.

REVIVALIST OFFICE, CINCINNATI, OHIO.

Copyrighted 1899 by M. W. KNAPP.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

L MY CONVERSION, 3

II. CAW, TO THE MINISTRY, 12

III. MY SANCTIFICATION, 25

IV. CALL TO THE EVANGELISTIC WORK, 37

V. REVIVALS, 47

VI. ALTAR WORK, 56

vn. THE SECRET OP THE LORD, 69

VIII. WITHOUT REPUTATION, 77

IX. THE COMFORT IN TEMPTATION, 88

X. THE FOUR LOOKS TOWARD SODOM, 98

XI. THE STRENGTH OF SAMSON, . 106

XII. THE DEFEAT AT Ai, 117

XIII. THE SIFTER AND FAN, 126

XIV. THE BATTLE is NOT YOURS, 134

XV. THE TEST OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE, 143

XVI. THE TEST OF WANT AND RELIEF, 152

XVII. THE WITHERED HAND, 163 ^

XVIII. THE SMITTEN MOUTH, 173 /

XIX. THE SILENCE OF CHRIST, 181

XX. WAITING ON THE LORD, 190

XXI. THE CLEANSING BLOOD, 198

XXII. DWELLING AMONG LIONS, 207

XXIII. THE BLESSINGS OF TIME, 215

XXIV. THE FALL OF BALAAM, 225

XXV. THE MAN NEAREST TO GOD, 235

XXVI. WHY WEEPEST THOU ? 243

XXVII. HOLY JOY, 252

XXVHI. LOOKING UNTO JESUS, 263

Heart Talks.

MY CONVERSION.

THE first deep religious impression I can recall
occurred in my boyhood. A protracted-meeting
was being conducted in the town where I was raised.
Several preachers were in attendance, and I, a lad of
eight or ten years, was present a few times. At the
close of the services, and on the departure of the
ministers, I remember to have gone into a room alone,
and, casting myself oh the bed, wept a considerable
while. At that time I felt a great softness of heart,
and realized a decided drawing to, and preference for,
the Christian life; but in the course of a few weeks
it all passed away.

At the age of nineteen or twenty, on returning
from college, I joined a fashionable Church of an-
other denomination from that in which I had been
raised. This step was brought about mainly through
certain social influences, and in connecting myself

with that branch of Christ's Church there was no

3

4 HEART TALKS.

change of heart, nor indeed any proper spiritual im-
pression.

At the age of twenty-six, with a young wife and
two children, God found me. For years I had not
been to church, avoided preachers, laughed at re-
ligion, and was on the broad road to ruin. I regarded
not the Sabbath, was a great smoker of tobacco, had
got to imbibing wine occasionally, and was very pro-
fane. My temper at this time had become ungovern-
able, and the devil undoubtedly had me.

In the place where the Savior found me there were
no churches and no Christians. Instead of this, there
was any amount of card-playing, horse-racing, and
whisky-drinking. I did not take up with these last
three things, but, nevertheless, spiritually I was in a
lost condition.

The way my conversion took place has been an
unceasing wonder to me, as well as source of endless
gratitude.

Let the reader remember that there were no
churches in miles of me, and no preachers or Chris-
tians around.

The business of the store in which I was employed
as clerk and bookkeeper fell off greatly during the
summer of 1874. I used to walk up and down the
lonely building and meditate. Christ had got me
at last to a place where I was quiet, and could think.

MY CONVERSION. 5

The thought which repeatedly arose to my mind, and
with ever-increasing bitterness and sorrow, was that
I was a failure; that at twenty-six years of age I had
done nothing and was nothing.

I can see now that the Spirit was very busy with
me; I could not recognize his work so readily then,
but it is all clear now. He had no one to use in that
part of the country to teach me, and so worked di-
rectly upon my mind and heart. Repeatedly, when
alone in the store, I have buried my face in the piles
of goods on the counter, and wept the saddest of
tears. Then there would come longings to redeem
my life, and be a true man. But I was profoundly
ignorant as to what steps to take.

At this juncture I wrote two or three lines to my
mother, saying, "I am determined to be a better man,
and when I am a better man, I am going to pray."

The reply of my mother was all the help of a hu-
man character I obtained in my conversion. She
wrote a hasty and brief answer, in these words :

"Mv DEAR SON, — I am delighted to hear of your
good resolutions. But you have made a great mis-
take. Do n't wait to be a better man before you pray,
but pray, and you will be a better man.

"Affectionately, YOUR MOTHER."

This note brought a perfect flood of light to my
mind. I saw I had been putting the cart before the

6 HEART TALKS.

horse. Like the lightning illumines the whole land-
scape with a sudden flash, so God used the simple
words of my mother to clear up the uncertainty and
darkness, and I saw in an instant, and that most viv-
idly, what I had to do. I must pray, and keep at it
until something happened.

That Thursday night I knelt down to pray at my
bedside for the first time since my boyhood. My
young wife looked perfectly astounded at the act. I
do not believe that if a wild animal had leaped through
the window into the room, she could have been more
amazed than she was at the spectacle of her kneeling
husband; but I always possessed a goodly amount of
will-power and what is commonly called backbone,
and so prayed on. Still I did not believe God would
have mercy on such a sinner as myself; and so He did
not, for without faith it is impossible to please Him.

Friday night I was on my knees again before
retiring; but it seemed to me that God was far away
in heaven, and I was down here on earth, and I did not
see how He could save me. And so He did not, for
here was unbelief again.

On Saturday night I went again through the mel-
ancholy and apparently fruitless struggle. I arose
with neither light nor comfort, but full of determina-
tion to press on and pray on until something hap-
pened.

MY CONVERSION. ^

On Sunday the store was closed, and I had the
entire Sabbath at home. After breakfast I walked
out in a grove near the house, and there, hidden from
view, knelt down amid the trees, and with longing
eyes looked up through an open space into the blue
heaven. I told God that I gave Him myself and all
I had, that I wanted salvation and rest, and please to
take me. I pleaded with Him in this way for quite a
while, and discontinued I know not why. I walked
thoughtfully back to the house, and took my seat by
tr^e side of a center-table in the room. I picked up
the Bible to read, and had scarcely read a line when
suddenly I was converted. Such a peace and rest
flooded my soul as I had never felt before in my
life, and it was so new, so sweet, so strangely blissful,
so melting, that I burst into tears, and cried out to
my wife on the opposite side of the table, "O Laura,
I am not going to hell after all !"

I went across the room, and poured water into
the basin to bathe my tear-stained face. But I found
that a fountain was flowing which I could not stop;
and a blessed, beautiful love and peace was in me
that water could not wash away.

In a few hours the ecstasy was gone; but I was
a changed man. Moreover, everybody saw it, at
home and abroad.

In going from my house to the store, two miles

8 HEART TALKS.

away, I would pray three times before I got there.
I had the places picked out, one in a deep wooded
valley, one in a willow thicket in the middle of the
field, and one on the top of a hill, protected from view
by a clump of trees.

I was very ignorant in regard to spiritual things;
but I kept on praying, read much in a Bible which I
carried in my pocket; began family prayer, although
it came near choking me to pray before my wife and
neighbors who dropped in; and, in addition, talked
to everybody who would listen to me about this new
strange, wonderful life which had come to me.

Two men drove up to the store one day, and after
the exchange of salutations, pulled out a flask of
whisky and asked me if I would take a drink with
them. I replied: "No, I thank you. Now, as you
have offered something to me, let me read something
to you out of this Book."

I began drawing my little Bible out of my pocket ;
but the instant they saw what it was, they gave their
horse a sharp cut with the whip, and without a word
of farewell dashed down the road. To this day I can
recall their astonished look, discomfited faces, and
rapid retreat.

Yet with this completely changed life, I could not
understand many things about my own experience.
I could not see why that delightful joy which

CONVERSION. Q

filled me that Sabbath morning had left me. I knew
it was from God; but why should it depart? It did
not abide, although it left me a changed man. The
constant query of my mind was relative to that new
sweet emotion that swept over me. Was it salva-
tion, or God simply encouraging and drawing me on
to salvation yet to come? Let the reader remember
I had no one to look to or advise with.

One day there came an unutterable longing to
experience again the same sweet spiritual sensation
which had flooded me for the first time a few days
before. In my rummaging over the library for re-
ligious books I had found an old work, wherein I read
of a devout woman who was so humble that she al-
ways prayed to God on her face. It made a deep im-
pression on me. I was standing on the gallery of the
store thinking about it with that hungry heart of
mine. Looking up and down the long road, I saw
no one in sight, whereupon I stretched myself upon
the ground, put my face down in the grass, and asked
God to please grant me the same blessed joy He had
given me in my house that Sabbath morning, that I
might know I was His. Instantly I was filled with
holy joy, the identical first experience. I arose from
the ground all smiles, and with happy tears flowing
down my face. But in a few hours it was all gone
again.

10 HEART TALKS.

So passed ten days or two weeks away, when I
became hungry for spiritual instruction. There was
so much I did not understand, and craved to know.

I determined to go to a Methodist preacher, and
lay the whole case before him. So, saddling my horse,
I rode twelve miles to Yazoo City, and called on the
Rev. R. D. Norsworthy. There were other preachers
in the town; but it is significant that I felt drawn to
go to a minister of the Church of my mother, and in
which I had been brought up.

.This Methodist pastor said afterwards, that as he
saw me walking towards his gate he felt, as he looked
at my face, that he had business on his hands. Tell-
ing him that I desired to speak with him on spiritual
matters, he dismissed all from the room, asked me to
be seated, and to tell him what was on my mind.

Something of my ignorance of religious phrases
and terms can be seen in one of the first utterances
that fell from my lips. The preacher must have been
amused, if not amazed. I said in a broken voice:
"Mr. Norsworthy, I am an awakened man; but I do
not think I am convicted yet;" and promptly bury-
ing my face in my hands, burst into a flood of tears.

From this occurrence it can be seen that the heart
and head do not always run equally together in the
race for heaven. It is possible to be all right in soul,
and not understand theology. The spiritual part of

MY CONVERSION. II

a divine blessing can come on the lightning express,
while the intellectual part may arrive some hours or
days later on the freight.

The preacher saw at once that I was a converted
man; but determined that God should tell me, and in
His own way and time. He, however, quoted a num-
ber of Bible passages to me, which brought floods of
light then and afterwards.

So, on returning home, when this beautiful joy
swept again into my heart, I knew it was the Spirit's
witness to my salvation and sonship. I pored over the
Bible, devoured every good book I could find, prayed
on my knees six or seven times a day, talked religion
to everybody, stirred up the whole country, saw my
wife and sister both converted in less than a month,
and became blessedly established in a few weeks.

IL

CALL TO THE MINISTRY.

SOON after my conversion, I felt drawn to join the
Methodist Church. Hiring a buggy, I drove
into Yazoo City one Saturday with my wife and two
children. The little ones were brought in to be bap-
tized. We all came to the altar together, the whole
family being given to God at the same hour. On
returning to my pew, I was melted with holy love,
and wept convulsively with my head bowed on the
bench before me. An old, grayheaded member of
the Church, Brother Hunter by name, came over to
me, and, giving me his hand, wept also as he tried to
speak.

It was while sitting in this pew I felt the first call
to preach. As my eyes fell on the preacher who had
taken me into the Church, and who was now speak-
ing in the pulpit, a voice whispered within me, "That
is your place."

I was astonished, and yet thrilled. In another
moment this verse was deeply impressed upon me,
and I was less familiar with it than many other pas-
sages: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the
feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publish-

13

CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 13

eth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that
publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God
reigneth !"

As these words lingered like a strain of melody
in my heart, I found a great desire springing up to
do as the verse said. It seemed, however, as I thought
upon the matter, among the impossibilities, and so I
dismissed the thought, and remembered the impres-
sion no more for days.

After this my pastor paid me a short visit, and
while walking with him along the road, he suddenly
turned, and said, "My brother, you ought to preach."

Again I was both pleased and yet disturbed.
Then followed several weeks of a most remarkable
struggle in regard to the matter. An impression was
on me that I must preach, accompanied with delight-
ful divine touches upon the soul; but as I reasoned
against and resisted it, a profound gloom would come
upon me for hours.

While in this state of mind I spoke one day to a
friend and relative, who was an unconverted man,
telling him of the impression upon me, but that I felt
so unworthy that it seemed to me if I should enter
the pulpit some one ought to kick me out. His
reply was, "If you feeel this way, you evidently ought
not to preach."

His answer brought no relief, but cast me down

14 HEART TALKS.

more than ever. It was some time afterward before
I got the light to see that he, being an unregenerated
man, was in no condition to give advice in spiritual
matters. I also got to see that a sense of unworthi-
ness is a good and proper feeling for one to have who
enters upon the sacred vocation of the ministry. I
saw that while I had expressed myself unfortunately
in confessing to my sense of unworthiness, yet back
of the faulty words was a right spirit and state of
heart with which God was well pleased.

There were two approaches to the house where I
lived, — one which skirted a field and went over a hill
to the high road, and another much shorter, which
passed through a narrow, dark valley of several hun-
dred yards in extent. This valley was so filled with
forest trees, growing up its steep sides and bending
over at the summit, that even in the daytime the place
was shadowy and gloomy-looking; but at night the
darkness was intense, and on starlit nights it was ex-
ceedingly difficult to see the path which wound about
through the trees, crossing and recrossing the little
branch of water that tinkled down the center.

One night I entered this place, trying to persuade
myself that it was impossible for me to preach, that
I did not have the ability, the eloquence, and many
other things that I thought to be necessary. I found
that as I thus mentally argued against my entering

CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 15

upon such a calling and life, that I was becoming more
and more darkened in mind and wretched in soul.
About the time I reached the darkest portion of the
woods, I felt that the valley was not as black as my
spirit in its conscious lack of all spiritual light and
comfort. I was in such misery, and there came upon
me such a horror of darkness, that I fell upon the
ground, and rolled upon the leaves in the most acute
and overwhelming distress.

Suddenly, I know not why, I looked up, and cried
out, "Lord, I will preach," when instantly the glory
of God filled me, the dark valley fairly flashed and
glittered, and laughing, crying, and shouting, I leaped
along the path, jumped the branch, ran up the hill-
side, on the top of which was my home, and fairly
quivering with joy, and with my face all aglow with
the happiness in me, I stood before my wife in the
sitting-room, crying out, "I will preach."

This joy remained in me for several days, when
I began looking again at my unfitness. I remembered
I had never been trained to speak in public, had not
gone to a theological college, was far from sure that
I could preach a sermon, etc. Whereupon all the old
gloom came back upon me.

I struggled along with the depression the best I
could while I attended to the work at the store. One
day I was out on a collecting tour, and had ridden

16 HEART TALKS.

from house to house, and plantation to plantation,
with my bills and accounts, and was that wretched I
could scarcely speak to the people I was calling upon.
Happening to pass in the neighborhood of my home
in the afternoon, my wife, seeing my fatigue and mel-
ancholy, insisted on my stopping while she had me
a lunch prepared. I sat down at the table mechanic-
ally, and did not even notice what was placed before
me. I fear I did not hear her when she spoke to me.
I was in a gloom that God himself was putting on me
to bring me to my senses.

I can not tell why I did so, but without any mental
process leading up to the speech, without having
anticipated saying it a minute beforehand, and just
as if it was hurled out of me by some internal force,
I struck the table with my clenched hand, and cried,
"I will preach the gospel!" Instantly the glory of
God rilled me, so that I laughed, wept, and rejoiced
uncontrollably for fully a half hour.

Will the reader be out of patience with me, when
I state that, in spite of all this evident will of God
in my case, I allowed Satan in the next hour to
direct my mind to the fact that I was no speaker,
never had been one, and that the twenty-sixth year of
one's life was a very late hour to get ready for such an
important work. The consequence was, another spell
of gloom followed. For in less than a minute after I

CALL TO THE MINISTRY. \?

allowed the doubt to enter, God's Spirit withdrew,
and left me in the old-time horrible gloom.

It gives me pleasure to state that the next battle
I fought proved a victory, and one that was glorious,
complete, and permanent.

Several days after the occurrence just related, I
was sitting one night in company with my wife in our
room. She was sewing by lamplight on one side of
the center-table, while I was on the other side unable
to read, talk, and scarcely think, because of the bur-
den on the heart and conflict in the mind. Forgetful
of her presence and everything else in my misery,
suddenly as had happened twice before, without any
studied purpose of saying such words, here they came
again, "God helping me, I will preach the gospel,"
when such a flash of light, such a tender, melting,
thrilling joy entered my soul, that I leaped to my
feet, and stood all trembling and transfigured before
my wife. To this day I recall her words: "Beverly,
how can you doubt God's will in this matter any
longer after what he has just done for you?"

Thank God! I never did any more. From that
hour to this, there has never been a question in my
mind but that God, in his infinite condescension,
called me to preach the gospel of his blessed Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ.

A few weeks after this, I was recommended by the

1 8 HEART TALKS.

Church Conference of Yazoo City, Rev. R. D. Nors-
worthy pastor, to the Quarterly Conference for li-
cense to preach. The last named body licensed and
recommended me to the Mississippi Annual Confer-
ence. A single vote was cast against me ; it was that
of the old man who had wept over me when I joined
the Church. He doubtless could not see how so
much could be done for a young man in so brief a
period: converted July I2th, and here in October li-
censed to preach and recommended to the Annual
Conference. It all looked like undue haste and gen-
eral prematureness to him. He did not know that
sometimes people can live a year in one day, and that
God can marvellously carry on His work in a surren-
dered soul and life.

I was outside of the church while they were bal-
loting on my name, having been requested to with-
draw. I can see the old brick building now, the place
where I had gone to Sunday-school as a child, and
attended Church with my mother, brother, and sis-
ters. My mind was not on what the Quarterly Con-
ference was doing inside. I was in the shadow of an
old tree which grew near the pavement, and was look-
ing up at the distant stars, filled with thoughts of
Christ, and feeling what an honor and responsibility
was laid on me in preaching the gospel.

Some one came to the church door and called me.

CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 19

I went in, and was told by the presiding elder, the
Rev. H. H. Montgomery, that I had been licensed to
preach, and recommended for the traveling connec-
tion in the Mississippi Annual Conference, the next
session of which was to be held in December, 1874,
in the town of Hazelhurst.

That night, when assigned to a room in the hos-
pitable home of the Methodist pastor, I could not
sleep; but lay thinking and praying on the bed. It
seemed so strange to be a preacher. Then I felt so
keenly my littleness and helplessness that I was quite
cast down. Suddenly I had such a view of Christ
presenting me to his Father, protecting and covering
me by his love, grace, and power, that I was filled with
one of the sweetest blessings I had ever experienced.

Having a long ride before me the next day, I
arose before daylight without disturbing the family,
saddled my horse, and left Yazoo City asleep behind
me, while the firmament was twinkling above my
head, and the morning star hung, a great orb of
beauty, in the east, the beautiful forerunner of the
unrisen sun.

I was five miles from town when the day began
to break. The cotton and corn fields had little spots
and banks of silver haze upon them. A sweetness and
freshness was in the air of the early dawn that was
like an elixir to brain and heart. The hills were

20

HEART TALKS.

standing up in the indistinct light, solemn and gray,
like great altars. A slight mist on their heads looked
like rising incense. Nature seemed to be sacrificing
to God. I was drinking it all into my already over-
flowing soul, when fully a quarter of a mile away, on
one of the hills, I heard a negro man singing. His
voice was rich, deep, and solemn. The hymn was a
plaintive old melody. The words and music God
brought to me through the misty, tremulous, beauti-
ful morning air were :

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CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 21

How the sacred song echoed and re-echoed over
the fields, in the valley, and was thrown back from
the opposite hillsides ! I was almost breathless, while
the words "heavenly race" and "immortal crown"
seemed to linger the longest.

The singer was hidden from me in the trees on
the hill. He knew not that his song was reaching,
rilling, and blessing me, and this made it all the more
powerful. I had checked the canter of my horse, and
was walking him along the road, that I might catch
every strain and hear every word. The singer was
deliberate. He may have been employed in some
kind of work, and hence took his time ; so that a full
minute elapsed, giving the strains of the first verse
full time to die away in the distance before he resumed
again. This time it was :

"A cloud of witnesses around,

Hold thee in full survey;
Forget the steps already trod,
And onward urge thy way."

This time I felt the wonderful strengthening and
girding power of the words, and said most fervently,
"Lord, it shall be so."

Again, after a pause, came another verse, thrown
outward by the mellow, solemn voice of the singer:

" 'T is God's all animating voice

That calls thee from on high;
T is His own hand presents the prize
To thine aspiring eye."

22 HEART TALKS.

O, how the strain and words sank into the soul!
The contrast between earth and heaven was so pro-
foundly felt. The littleness of the one, and the great-
ness and blessedness of the other, seemed to be two
facts unquestioned by the glowing heart.

As the Negro sang that morning, would that all
could have heard him in one of God's natural tem-
ples! And yet, as far as I could see, there was but
one listener and worshiper beside himself. What a
pity not to have heard such a sacred song, with the
sides of the valley for sounding-boards, the opaline
sky for a ceiling, the floating mist on the hilltops like
incense rising from majestic altars, while the silent
woods and fragrant canebrakes seemed actually to be
drinking the scene and sound in, like the solitary lis-
tener !

The singer reached the fourth stanza. How tri-
umphantly it rang out ! Not a note or word was lost :

" That crown, with peerless glories bright,

Which shall new luster boast,
When victors' wreaths and monarch's gems
Shall blend in common dust."

The world looked very little, and its honors and
rewards very contemptible, under the words of the
last verse. Heaven seemed the only thing worth liv-
ing for. The heart was all melted, and the tears
dropped fast.

CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 23

I had reined in my horse to hear the last strain
and word of the hymn which God had sent to me. I
also wanted to impress the scene upon my mind, and
carry it away with me, a precious mental treasure
forever. And I did so.

After a little, when the silence reigned unbroken
over the fields, and the singer had gone, I touched
my horse and galloped swiftly away. I had many
miles to go, and much to do that day. I had to tell
my employer that God had work for me ; I wanted to
see my mother and get her blessing; and then I
wanted to reach my own home by sundown, where
my wife was waiting to hear what had happened, and
what I was going to do.

All this was attended to that day with a glad and
overflowing heart. The die had been cast. I had
crossed my Rubicon. I had turned my back on the
old-time life forever, and was now the Lord's. I was
His servant and ambassador from this time forth to
preach his gospel.

But I took that morning picture with me. To
this hour I see the dawning day, the outspread misty
fields, the motionless woods, the silent, solemn hills,
while floating over it all I hear the plaintive song of
the unseen Negro singer, whom God sent forth to
nerve, encourage, and bless the soul of a young,
newly-made preacher.

24 HEART TALKS.

May he, with all others in the Christian ministry,
be able to join in the last verse of the already quoted
song:

" Blest Savior, introduced by thee,

Have I my race begun;
Till, crowned with vict'ry, at thy feet
I '11 lay my honors down."

HI.

MY SANCTIFICATION.

I ALWAYS believed in the doctrine in a general
way, but not in the way particular. That is, I
recognized it as being true in our standards and
religious biographies; but was not so quick to see
it in the life and experience of persons claiming the
blessing. I was too loyal a Methodist to deny what
my Church taught me to believe; but there must
have been beams and motes that kept me from the
enjoyment of a perfect vision of my brother. Perhaps
I was prejudiced; or I had confounded ignorance
and mental infirmity with sin; or, truer still, I was
looking on a "hidden life," as the Bible calls it, and,
of course, could not but blunder in my judgments and
conclusions, even as I had formerly erred as a sinner
in my estimation of the converted man.

I remember once having been thrown in the com-
pany of three ministers who were sanctified men, and
their frequent "praise the Lords" was an offense to
me. I saw nothing to justify such demonstrativeness.
The fact entirely escaped me that a heart could be in
such a condition that praise and rejoicing would be

as natural as breathing; that the cause of joy rested

25

26 HEART TALKS.

not in anything external, but in some fixed inward
state or possession; that, therefore, perpetual praise
could not only be possible, but natural, and in fact
irrepressible. But at that time all this was hidden
from me, except in a theoretic way, or as mistily be-
held in distant lives of saints who walked with God
on earth fifty or a hundred years ago.

In my early ministry I was never thrown with a
sanctified preacher, nor had I ever heard a sermon
on entire sanctification. I beheld the promised life
from a Pisgah distance, and came back from the view
with a fear and feeling that I should never come into
that goodly land. So, when I was being ordained
at Conference, it was with considerable choking of
voice, and with not a few inward misgivings and
qualms of conscience, that I replied to the bishop's
questions, that I was "going on to perfection," that
I "expected to be made perfect in love in this life,"
and that I "was groaning after it." Perhaps the
bishop himself was disturbed at the questions he
asked. Perhaps he thought it was strange for a min-
ister of God and father in Israel, whose life was al-
most concluded, to be asking a young preacher if he
expected to obtain what he himself had never suc-
ceeded in getting. Stranger still, if he asked the
young prophet if he expected to attain what he really
felt was unattainable !

MY SANCTIFICATION. VJ

One thing I rejoice in being able to say: That
although about that time, while surprised and grieved
at the conduct of a man claiming the blessing of
sanctification, and although doubts disturbed me then
and even afterward, yet I thank God that I have never,
in my heart or openly, denied an experience or warred
against a doctrine that is the cardinal doctrine of the
Methodist Church, and concerning which I solemnly
declared to the bishop that I was groaning to obtain.
God in his mercy has kept me from this inconsis-
tency— this peculiar denial of my Church and my
Lord. Let me further add, that in spite of my indis-
tinct views of sanctification all along, yet ever and
anon during my life I have encountered religious
people in whose faces I traced spiritual marks and
lines — a divine handwriting not seen on every Chris-
tain countenance. There was an indefinable some-
thing about them, a gravity and yet sweetness of
manner, a containedness and quietness of spirit, a
restfulness and unearthliness, a far-awayness about
them, that made me feel and know that they had a life
and experience that I had not; that they knew God
as I did not, and that a secret of the Lord had been
given to them which had not been committed to me.
These faces and lives, in the absence of sanctified
preachers and sermons on the subject, kept my faith
in the doctrine, in a great degree I suppose, from

±8 HEART TALKS.

utterly perishing. Then there were convictions of
my own heart all along in regard to what a minister's
life should be. Only a month before my sanctifica-
tion, there was impressed upon me suddenly one day
such a sense of the holiness and awfulness of the office
and work, that my soul fairly sickened under the con-
sciousness of its own shortcomings and failures, and
was made to cry out to God. Moreover, visions of
an unbroken soul-rest, and a constant abiding spirit-
ual power, again and again came up before the mind
as a condition possible and imperative. A remarkable
thing about it is, that these impressions came to one
who had enjoyed the peace of God daily for fifteen
years.

At the Seashore Camp-ground, in 1888, after hav-
ing preached at eleven o'clock, the writer came for-
ward to the altar as a penitent convicted afresh under
his own sermon, that he was not what he should be,
nor what God wanted him to be and was able to make
him. Many will remember the day and hour, and the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the time. I see now
that my soul was reaching out, even then, not for the
hundredth or thousandth blessing (for these I had
before obtained), but what is properly called the
Second Blessing. I was even then convicted by the
Holy Ghost in regard to the presence of inbred sin
in a justified heart.

SANCTIFICATION. 29

Nearly a year afterward I instituted a series of
revival services in Carondelet Street Church, with the
Rev. W. W. Hopper as my helper. At all the morn-
ing meetings the preacher presented the subject of
entire sanctification. It was clearly and powerfully
held up as being obtained instantaneously through
consecration and faith. Before I received the bless-
ing myself, I could not but be struck with the pres-
ence and power of the Holy Ghost. While urging
the doctrine one morning, the preacher received such
a baptism of glory that for minutes he was helpless;
and while we were on our knees supplicating for this
instantaneous sanctification, the Holy Spirit fell here
and there upon individuals in the assembly, and shouts
of joy and cries of rapture went up from the kneeling
congregation in a way never to be forgotten. The
presence of God was felt so overwhelmingly and so
remarkably that I could not but reason after this
manner: Here is being presented the doctrine of in-
stantaneous sanctification by faith. If it were a false
doctrine, would God thus manifest himself? Would
the Holy Ghost descend with approving power upon
a lie? Does he not invariably withdraw his presence
from the preacher and people when false doctrine is
presented? But here He is manifesting Himself in a
most remarkable manner. The meeting or hour that
is devoted to this one subject is the most wonderful

30 HEART TALKS.

meeting and hour of all. The service fairly drips with
unction. Shining faces abound. Christ is seen in
every countenance. If entire sanctification obtained
instantaneously is a false doctrine, is not the Holy
Ghost actually misleading the people by granting His
presence and favor, and showering His smiles at the
time when this error or false doctrine is up for dis-
cussion and exposition? But would the Spirit thus
deceive? Irresistibly and with growing certainty I
was led to see that the truth was being presented
from the pulpit, and that the Holy Ghost, who always
honors the truth when preached, was falling upon ser-
mon, preacher, and people, because it was the truth.
And by the marvelous and frequent display of His
presence and power at each and every sanctification
meeting He was plainly setting to it the seal of His ap-
proval and indorsement, and declaring unmistakably
that the doctrine which engrossed us was of heaven,
and was true.

One morning a visitor — a man whom I admire
and love — made a speech against entire sanctification,
taking the ground that there was nothing but a per-
fect consecration and growth in grace to look for;
that there was no second work or blessing to be ex-
perienced by the child of God. This was about the
spirit and burden of his remarks. At once a chill fell
upon the service, that was noticed then and com-

SANCTIFICATION. . 31

mented on afterward. The visitor was instantly re-
plied to by one who had just received the blessing,
and as immediately the presence of God was felt and
manifested. And to the proposition made — that all
who believed in an instantaneous and entire sanctifi-
cation would please arise — at once the whole audi-
ence, with the exception of five or six individuals,
arose simultaneously. It was during this week that
the writer commenced seeking the blessing of sancti-
fication. According to direction, he laid everything
on the altar — body, soul, reputation, salary, indeed
everything. Feeling at the time justified, having
peace with God, he could not be said to have laid his
sins on the altar ; for, being forgiven at that moment,
no sin was in sight. But he did this, however : he laid
inbred sin upon the altar ; a something that had troub-
led him all the days of his converted life — a some-
thing that was felt to be a disturbing element in his
Christian experience and life. Who will name this
something? It is called variously by the appellations
of original sin, depravity, remains of sin, roots of
bitterness and unbelief, and by Paul it is termed "the
old man;" for, in writing to Christians, he exhorts
them to put off "the old man," which was corrupt.
Very probably there will be a disagreement about the
name while there is perfect recognition of the exist-
ence of the thing itself. For lack of a title that will

32 HEART TALKS.

please all, I call the dark, disturbing, warring prin-
ciple "that something." It gives every converted
man certain measures of inward disturbance and
trouble. Mind you, I do not say that it compels him
to sin, for this "something" can be kept in subjection
by the regenerated man. But it always brings dis-
turbance, and often leads to sin. It is a something
that leads to hasty speeches, quick tempers, feelings
of bitterness, doubts, suspicions, harsh judgments,
love of praise, and fear of men. At times there is a
momentary response to certain temptations that
brings, not merely a sense of discomfort, but a tinge
and twinge of condemnation. All these may be, and
are, in turn, conquered by the regenerated man ; but
there is battle and wounds ; and often after the battle
a certain uncomfortable feeling within that it was not
a perfect victory. It is a something that at times
makes devotion a weariness, the Bible to be hastily
read instead of devoured, and prayer a formal ap-
proach instead of a burning interview with God that
closes with reluctance. It makes Church-going at
times not to be a delight, is felt to be a foe to secret
and spontaneous giving, causes religious experience
to be spasmodic, and presents within the soul a
constant, abiding, and unbroken rest. Rest there is;
but it is not continuous, unchanging, and permanent.
It is a something that makes true and noble men of

MY SANCTIFICATION. 33

God, when appearing in the columns of a Christian
newspaper in controversy, to make a strange mistake,
and use gall instead of ink, and write with a sword
instead of a pen. It is a something that makes
religious assemblies sing with great emphasis and
feeling :

"Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it."

It is an echo that is felt to be left in the heart, in
which linger sounds that ought to die away forever.
It is a thread or cord-like connection between the
soul and the world, although the two have drifted far
apart. It is a middle ground, a strange medium, upon
which Satan can and does operate, to the inward dis-
tress of the child of God, whose heart at the same time
is loyal to his Savior, and who feels that if he died
even then, he would be saved.

Now that something I wanted out of me. What
I desired was not the power of self-restraint (that I
had already), but a spirit naturally and unconsciously
meek. Not so much a power to keep from all sin,
but a deadness to sin. I wanted to be able to turn
upon sin and the world the eye and ear and heart of
a dead man. I wanted perfect love to God and man,
and a perfect rest in my soul all the time. This dark
"something" that prevented this life, I laid on the
altar, and asked God to consume it as by fire. I never

asked God once at this time for pardon. That I had
3

34 HEART TALKS.

in my soul already. But it was cleansing, sin eradi-
cation, I craved. My prayer was for sanctification.

After the battle of consecration came the battle of
faith. Both precede the perfect victory of sancti-
fication. Vain is consecration without faith to secure
the blessing. Hence men can be consecrated, and
not know the blessing of sanctification. I must be-
lieve there is such a work in order to realize the grace.
Here were the words of the Lord that proved a foun-
dation for my faith: "Every devoted thing is most
holy unto the Lord." "The blood of Jesus Christ,
his Son, cleanseth us from all sin." Still again : "The
altar sanctifieth the gift." In this last quotation is
a statement of a great fact. The altar is greater than
the gift; and whatsoever is laid upon the altar be-
comes sanctified or holy. It is the altar that does the
work. The question arises: Who and what is the
altar? In Hebrews xiii, 10-12, we are told. Dr.
Clarke, in commenting upon the passage, says the
altar here mentioned is Jesus Christ. All who have
studied attentively the life of our Lord can not but
be impressed with the fact that in his wondrous per-
son is seen embraced the priest, the lamb, and the
altar. He did the whole thing; there was no one to
help. As the victim He died, as the priest He offered
Himself, and His divine nature was the altar upon
which the sacrifice was made. The Savior, then, is

MY SANCTIFICATION. 35

the Christian's altar. Upon Him I lay myself. The
altar sanctifies the gift. The blood cleanses from all
sin, personal and inbred. Can I believe that? Will
I believe it? My unbelief is certain to shut me out
of the blessing; my belief as certainly shuts me in.
The instant we add a perfect faith to a perfect conse-
cration, the work is done and the blessing descends.
As Paul says, "We which have believed do enter into
rest."

All this happened to the writer. For nearly three
days he lived in a constant state of faith and prayer.
He believed God; he believed the work was done
before the witness was given.

On the morning of the third day — may God help
me to tell it as it occurred! — the witness was given.
In was about nine o'clock in the morning. That
morning had been spent from daylight in meditation
and prayer. I was alone in my room in the spirit of
prayer, in profound peace and love, and in the full
expectancy of faith, when suddenly I felt that the
blessing was coming. By some delicate instinct or
intuition of soul I recognized the approach and de-
scent of the Holy Ghost. My faith arose to meet the
blessing. In another minute I was literally prostrated
by the power of God. I called out again and again :
"O my God ! my God ! and glory to God !" while bil-
lows of fire and glory rolled in upon my soul with

36 HEART TALKS.

steady, increasing force. The experience was one of
fire. I recognized it all the while as the baptism of
fire. I felt that I was being consumed. For several
minutes I thought I would certainly die. I knew it
was sanctification. I knew it as though the name was
written across the face of the blessing and upon every
wave of glory that rolled in upon my soul.

Can not God witness to purity of heart as he does
to pardon of sin? Are not his blessings self-inter-
preting? He that impresses a man to preach, that
moves him unerringly to the selection of texts and
subjects, that testifies to a man that he is converted,
can he not let a man know when he is sanctified? In
answer, read Hebrews x, 14: "For by one offering He
hath forever perfected them that are sanctified,
whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us."

I knew I was sanctified, just as I knew fifteen years
before that I was converted. I knew it, not only
because of the work itself in my soul, but through
the Worker. He, the Holy Ghost, bore witness
clearly, unmistakably, and powerfully to his own
work; and although years have passed away since
that blessed morning, yet the witness of the Holy
Spirit to the work is as clear to-day as it was then.

IV.

CALL TO THE EVANGELISTIC WORK.

OOME good people have expressed great skepti-
^ cism in regard to a special call from God to evan-
gelize. They can understand a regular call to the
ministry, but fail to see and believe in an impression
from the Holy Ghost for that particular work.

There are several facts which should cause them
to give perfect credence to the statements of preach-
ers who have been thus impressed, anointed, and
separated for the calling and peculiar labor.

One fact is the existence of such a spiritual office
in the kingdom of Christ. Among the Savior's gifts
to the Church, in addition to prophets, apostles, pas-
tors, and teachers, Paul mentions the evangelist. The
Scripture does not leave us in doubt as to who and
what he is; and so, after telling us in Ephesians how
he is to "perfect the saints" and "edify the body of
Christ," etc., we are shown in another book a vivid,
life-size picture of one at work. The portrait is that
of Philip, sent here and there, caught away to this
place, having a revival in another place, and always
filled with the power of the Holy Ghost. The Bible •
says about him, that he was an evangelist; the

37

38 HEART TALKS.

Scriptural idea of such an office being that of a man
constantly on the move for God, and preaching as he
goes. Certainly the conclusion is clear, that if there
be such a spiritual office and work, there will be a
call to that effect from the Holy Ghost.

Our bishops ought not to be surprised at such a
call when, being preachers already, they state that
they were moved by the Holy Spirit to take upon
them the office and work of a bishop in the Church
of God; a work and office decidedly different in
many respects from that of a pastor. From compara-
tive obscurity he springs into prominence; from a
small salary he is advanced to a large one; from a
small local influence to lifetime power; from being
ruled to ruling others. This is a great change; yet
they say, before a large crowd of listening preachers
and laymen, that they have been moved by the Holy
Ghost to take upon them this office.

It certainly appears to the writer that when an
evangelist arises, and says that, as a preacher, the call
of God has come to him to enter upon a work which
means increased labor, uncertain income, and often-
times lifetime reproach, our bishops ought to be the
last to doubt him. If the two calls of bishop and
evangelist are brought under the searching light of
the Gospel, which seems to be the most spiritual and

CALL TO THE EVANGELISTIC WORK. 39

heavenly, and which life looks most like that of the
Man of Nazareth and Galilee?

Again, our missionaries ought not to be surprised.
They were preachers, and yet upon them, as such, came
the call to cross the sea and labor with the heathen.
Not every minister of the gospel has this call. In
addition they feel impressed to go to certain coun-
tries. One man is convinced he must labor in Africa,
another in Japan, a third in China, a fourth in Alaska,
and so on through the list. He who calls them to be
missionaries knows their mental and physical fitness
for certain parts of the world, and whispers India,
Egypt, or some island of the sea.

Is it not strange that the Church, with these facts
about the bishops and missionaries before them,
should wonder at the special call of God to some of
his servants to evangelize.

There are other facts which, if mentioned, would
be seen to make an unanswerable argument for the
necessity of the work of a true evangelist in the
Church. But the scope and design of this chapter
will not allow me to bring them forward. Some of
them the reader will not have much difficulty in
guessing. They all confirm the fact of a distinct
divine call to the evangelistic work. It may be a call
for life, or for a shorter period. Nevertheless it

40 HEART TALKS.

comes, has come, and will continue to come to certain
ones of the servants of God. It came to me. It may
be removed, but as yet is upon me. Moreover,
I did not want to be an evangelist. When it was
first suggested to me by a friend in the beginning
of the year 1891, the thought filled me with great
pain. I was perfectly satisfied with my work as a
pastor. Have always been happy in it, and successful
as well. Wedded as I was to the life, to the duties as
well as pleasures of the pastorate, the reader can see
it would take a good deal to get me out of it.

The first voice in this direction was an impression
which came vividly to me one day, that I would yet
be one. This was in the early part of 1893.

A second time, weeks afterward, it came upon me
while looking on my congregation at First Church,
which body of people I most deeply loved. The im-
pression was as clear to the mind as print to the eye,
"You must leave them and go out for Me."

A third time it came, while I was on my face in
the altar of my church, surrounded by a line of peni-
tents and seekers after pardon and holiness. The
whisper came to me, "You must be an evangelist."
As the word evangelist was impressed upon my mind
this time, a most heavenly sweetness filled my soul,
and a peace so deep and exquisite came upon me, that
I felt my heart would fairly melt within me. I wept

CALL TO THE EVANGELISTIC WORK. 4!

silently on my face before the Lord, and whispered
back, "I will go, Lord."

At this time God was pleased to send me a double
confirmation of the call. One was in the general con-
viction of the people that I ought to be and would
be an evangelist. This corresponds with what takes
place when a man is called to preach the gospel;
others are impressed at the same time that he should
do so.

The other confirmation consisted in numerous
"calls" from every direction for evangelistic help in
meetings. The doors already began to open.

One day, under an unusually deep impression that
I must enter upon such a life, I spoke out suddenly
to a member of my family, and said, "I believe God is
going to swing me from Massachusetts to California."

How well this has been fulfilled is well-known to
thousands of people in the land.

After this, on a certain occasion when I had per-
mitted myself to look at the toil, hardship, and un-
certain support of the calling, the long absences from
home it would entail, and other disagreeable features
that can readily be conjectured, God visited me in
another way. The mind of the Spirit was made
known to me in a very different and painful manner.
An impression vivid as lightning was shot through
me, that was as quickly comprehended as though it

42 HEART TALKS.

had been language. It was to this effect : "If you do
not go, I will lock up the Bible to you."

I can never forget the shocked and distressed feel-
ing of that moment. I was perfectly conscious that
God was speaking to me through his Spirit, and that
if I did not yield and go, the peculiar judgment
mentioned above would be visited upon me, and I,
who had been unfolding the Bible and preaching four
times a week with most delightful ease to my people,
would find the sacred volume in my hands locked
and sealed.

Still later than this, while in the church one day
during service, I had an open-eyed, waking vis-
ion of a broad landscape filled with church spires, and
from whose belfries came the sound of ringing bells.
I saw men standing before these buildings, looking
toward and beckoning to me. The very bells seemed
to call me. My soul was both melted and aroused
at the sight, and I do not remember to have doubted
or resisted the evangelistic call again.

I made my preparations to leave the pastorate,
writing to the bishop of our Conference concerning
my intention, and telling him that while I greatly re-
gretted to locate, yet as I was not sick or disabled, I
did not see how I could conscientiously ask for a
supernumerary relation, and in order to do the right
and honest thing I would request a location.

CALL TO THE EVANGELISTIC WORK. 43

This step is a grave one to a Methodist preacher.
It meant with me the severing of relations that had
been tender and beautiful for eighteen years. It
meant the cutting off from my family, in case of
my breaking down or death, a certain annual income
paid by the Conference to certain claimants. Eigh-
teen laborious years spent in the itinerancy had given
me a good right and title to such a fund; but I cut
myself and family off from this financial help, as by
a single stroke, through my location.

The day I stood up at Conference to ask that I
might be located, my heart melted, my voice nearly
broke down, and eyes overflowed with the genuine
sorrow which I felt. I told the Conference in my
farewell remarks, that "I loved the Methodist Church,
her doctrines, experiences, bishops, preachers, and
people; that I always expected to entertain this love;
that a Methodist preacher had baptized me, another
had taken me into the Church, a third had married
me ; that Methodist preachers had baptized and buried
my wife and children, and, please God, they should
bury me."

The scene will be recalled by many as a tearful
time. Some one started a hymn, a number of the
brethren came forward and threw their arms around
me, and tears were flowing fast all around, when the
gavel of the bishop fell with a sharp rap, and I, at

44 HEART TALKS.

my own request, was located in order to become an
evangelist.

I know that it was, and is still, a grave step. As
an evangelist I have no bishop or presiding elder to
look after my family in my absence, or in case of dis-
tress and want. In the event of my own personal
sickness or exhaustion from the work, I have no
salary to live on like a pastor until I get well. I have
no Board of Stewards to provide for me, or send me
away to some distant place to recuperate and recover,
while at the same time the family in my absence is
looked after and provided for as though its head were
present, engaged in faithful pulpit and pastoral work.
All this is lost in becoming an evangelist. Moreover,
I knew it when I located.

What a step it was! It helped me to understand
better than ever before the Scriptural account of Peter
leaping out on the waves to walk to Jesus, and of
Abraham going forth at the command of God into
strange countries, not knowing whither he went.
Here I was with a large family, with heavy monthly
expenses to meet, with no bank account, and no Offi-
cial Board back of me, and yet called to swing out
over the land to teach and defend a lost, forgotten,
and despised doctrine and experience, with countless
battles to fight, ecclesiastical opposition in high places

CALL TO THE EVANGELISTIC WORK. 45

to meet, and the evil forces of two worlds against me.
I was to leap out on the waves, and go out at the
command of the Lord, not knowing whither I went.

So my new appointment was the United States
Circuit. The Savior was my Bishop, the Archangel
Gabriel my Presiding Elder; and the angels, ravens,
and widow women through the land were my Board
of Stewards.

I am still living, traveling, preaching, and rejoic-
ing, while God continues to answer by fire ; and wher-
ever I go sinners are saved, backsliders reclaimed,
and believers are wholly sanctified to God.

For almost six years I have been preaching a free
and full salvation all over our broad land ; the first to
the sinner, the second to the believer. I have held
meetings in nearly every State in the Union, beside
the Dominion of Canada. I have witnessed in that
time fully fifteen thousand souls converted, re-
claimed, and sanctified. My absences from home
range from two to seven months at a time. Tight
places and trying hours have been many. The body
has often been almost exhausted, and the heart at
times lonely in a human sense. But the constant
smile and presence of Christ has cheered, His hand
and voice has called me on to new fields, and as I
have joyfully sprung forward to do His will and pro-

46 HEART TALKS.

claim a full gospel, He has, without a single exception,
on thousands of battle-fields stood by me, and given
me the victory.

What matter if devils rage, and human opposition
be felt. As I preach the Spirit answers to the Blood,
the fire falls upon the Word, sinnners are saved,
Christians are sanctified, Christ is uplifted and glori-
fied, and my own soul is thrilled, and blessed, and
satisfied. Hallelujah !

V.

REVIVALS.

SOME people have regarded a protracted meeting
and a revival as synonymous. But they are far
from being the same. The one is a means, and the
other should be the end in view. The protracted
meeting is inaugurated in order to obtain a revival.
But many times the protracted services conclude as
they began, without a sign of a genuine, scriptural,
Holy Ghost revival.

There are preachers who were once famous for
their success in this regard, but who in later life
seem to have lost all their former power. There are
Churches which were once noted as centers of salva-
tion, that afterward entered upon a period of decline
and spiritual lifelessness, reminding one of the Bible
description, "Thrice dead and plucked up by the
roots." The change in individuals and churches in
this regard is painfully evident to all spiritual ob-
servers.

A revival on the divine side is the undoubted
manifestation of the presence of God, the outpouring
of the Holy Ghost and actual conscious arrival of

Christ in the midst of the congregation. On the

47

48 HEART TALKS.

human side it is seen in the conversion of sinners,
reclamation of backsliders, sanctification of believers,
great joyfulness and activity upon the part of the
Church, and deep and solemn conviction in the entire
community.

This state of things is brought about by the faith-
ful preaching of the Word and the humble, prayerful
waiting upon God of the people. If the protracted
meeting lacks these features, the pulpit being with-
out unction, and the pew failing in humility, obedi-
ence, supplication, and persistent seeking after God,
the services end in utter failure. There is no descent
of the Spirit, no quickening of dead hearts, no glad-
ness and freedom, no rout and defeat of sin, no salva-
tion, no anything that is desirable and blessed in the
spiritual life.

A genuine revival is unmistakable. It is not only
seen, but felt. There was no need to post bills and
placards on the walls and fences, stating that the Holy
Ghost had fallen upon the disciples in the Upper
Room. Some kind of indescribable telegraphy flashed
the news everywhere. It is a wireless telegraphy,
but none the less certain. As soon as Samaria re-
ceives the Word of God, it seems to be known in
Jerusalem. When any Church receives the Holy
Ghost, it would be easier to hide a city on a hill with
its twinkling lights than this fact.

REVIVALS. 49

In one of Dr. Finney's revivals, a man was com-
ing in from the country to the town where the work
of grace was going on, and when he was still a mile
away suddenly felt such a spiritual atmosphere that
he was completely melted, and came into the place all
hushed and subdued. God had drawn a line of holy
grace and power all around the town, and it came to
pass that when a man passed it, he was shot through
with a dart.

A revival brings with it such a spirit of song,
praise, and gladness, such responsiveness in worship,
such warmth and power in prayer, such a tender glow
through all the service, such waves of joy and glory,
that it can not be mistaken. There is no straggling
to the meeting. People come in a hurry, and early,
and stay late.

In one of my meetings in a Western State, the
congregation packed the house one hour before the
time of regular evening service, which was 7.30. We
were compelled to move the hour of worship up to
6.30. The crowd then filled the building at six
o'clock. It was amusing to see the sexton ringing
the first and second bell, when the audience had al-
ready crowded the house. The writer asked him with
a smile why he rang the bell when the congregation
had jammed the building before the first belfry sum-
mons ; was it to let the public know that there was no
4

50 HEART TALKS.

more room in the house? He failed to understand
the little piece of harmless satire, and rang on just the
same for five minutes at a time, in obedience, we sup-
pose, to the law of habit, while the people smiled all
around at the needless wasted energy of an ecclesias-
tical machine or automaton.

The revival can come gradually, as the light creeps
up over the hills in the east, or suddenly, like a cloud-
burst. In the first instance there is seen a growing
seriousness on the part of the people, a quiet, general
melting, and almost before one knows it, the gospel
tide is in, and the Church beach is covered with the
warm, sunlit waves of salvation. In the second in-
stance, there has been faithful preaching for days, a
steady holding on to God by faith and prayer, when
on the fourth, fifth, eighth, tenth, or thirteenth day,
as the place was more or less difficult, there is a sudden
falling of the Spirit upon the people, followed in-
stantly by a melting down, breaking up, and rejoicing
time that would defy all description.

These sudden downfalls of the Holy Ghost would
read in print as follows: "The revival broke out at
eleven or twelve o'clock on such a morning, or eight
or nine o'clock on a certain evening ;" the point being
that all knew when the "Power came down," the Holy
Ghost fell on the audience, or the revival really began.

These instantaneous downpourings of the Holy

REVIVALS. 51

Spirit have established a remarkable similarity in my
mind to certain natural phenomena. As I have wit-
nessed oftentimes in my meetings the hours of prayer-
ful, anxious expectancy of the divine arrival, followed
in a single second with the sudden overpowering de-
scent of the Holy Ghost, and that succeeded by a
steady outpouring on human hearts and lives, of
streams and floods of grace and glory, I have been
invariably made to think of a sudden flash of light-
ning, the sharp, cracklike report of a peal of thunder,
and then the steady downpour of a tremendous rain.

I remember it is the same God who does both,
and so the likeness should not be so astonishing after
all. These are the revivals the writer prefers to see.
It is a kind of Noah's Deluge that sweeps skeptics off
their feet, chokes their utterances, drives sinners and
backsliders to the trees and hills, while the Ark of
Salvation, with a full passenger list and cargo, sweeps
victoriously over everything, and that in full view of
everybody.

No one needs to be told that a revival is going on.
Everybody knows it! Its gladsome and yet solemn
presence is being felt everywhere in the community.
God has granted the writer the privilege of witnessing
many of this order, and he has an impression that he
is destined to see many more before his work is ended.

On a certain morning in a Southern city, we were

52 HEART TALKS.

standing facing an audience that had been faithfully
preached to for four or five days. God had been, and
was working still in hearts, but there was no unusual
manifestation of his presence. A hitch or clog was
felt to be somewhere. What was it, and where was it?
Suddenly a young lady arose, ?nd confessed to
anger, estrangement, and separation from her mother,
both parties being members of the Church. With
tears dripping down her cheeks, she begged her for-
giveness, as she sat on the opposite side of the build-
^ ing. They met midway in the church and were locked
• in each other's arms, while handkerchiefs were busy
in the congregation, though scarcely a sound was to
be heard except the low sobs of the mother and
daughter referred to above.

In the midst of the quiet, subdued feeling, a gen-
/'tleman walked down the aisle, and, stopping before a
fellow-member of the Church, requested his pardon
for some act of the past. In an instant the two men
were in each other's arms. Two ladies next arose in
different parts of the house, and asked the pastor to
forgive them for having talked about him. Both burst
into tears as they made the request, and he, with full
eyes himself, went to them and gave them his hand
with a fervent "God bless you." Next followed two
humble confessions from two of the brethren, and two
most touching reconciliations, when suddenly, like a

REVIVALS. 53

flash of lightning, the Holy Ghost fell upon the audi-
ence, and there followed a scene I shall never be able /
to forget, of men and women prostrated under the
power of God, some helpless on the floor, some weep-
ing convulsively with faces buried in their hands, some!
on their feet, laughing, shouting, and clapping their \
hands, and every soul melted, fired, or filled with the \
Spirit of God.

We recall a second meeting, where we had reached
the fifth day without any notable break. There had
been a few souls brought into the light; but the
"power" had not come down. One morning, while
preaching, the fire fell, the wine of Pentecost arrived,
and the congregation looked like drunken people. A
man leaped to his feet, crying out in tones that thrilled
every heart, "Jesus has come ! Jesus has come !" The
aisles were filled with laughing, weeping, shouting
Christians, a number of them walking or running up
and down, clapping their hands and praising God.
Sinners were struck down on all sides as if by invisible
bolts. Under a single word or touch of the hand of
the Spirit-filled Christians, the men slipped from their
seats on the floor, or fell down wherever they were.
God's people were busy all over the house, talking to
and praying with the penitents and seekers ; while the
shouts of the saved, the cries and wails for mercy,
and the hallelujahs of the workers made a combina-

54 HEART TALKS.

tion of sounds astonishing to that town, fearful to hell
and its hosts, and all beautiful and delightful to angels
and the redeemed of heaven. About twenty-five souls
were converted and sanctified at this single service.
A third remarkable revival broke out on the thir-
teenth day of a meeting I was holding in a city in
California. There had been a number of souls saved
and sanctified ; but what I called the "break" had not
come. One Sunday afternoon I was preaching in
Peniel Hall to an audience that packed both floor and
galleries. The subject was the Baptism of the Holy
Ghost, received after the birth of the Spirit, a second
work of grace. I was concluding the sermon, while
a deep, sweet realization of the presence of God was
on my heart and that of others, when suddenly that
indescribable flash! crack! and heavenly downpour
took place. In other words, the Holy Ghost fell upon
scores, if not hundreds, at the same moment. Many
will remember the amazing scene. W6 do not ques-
tion that a couple of hundred people were all shouting
and praising God at the same time. We saw fully
fifty people in the gallery standing on their feet, wav-
ing their hands and crying, "Glory! Glory to God!"
Down on the lower floor the scene was even more
wonderful. Numbers rushed to the altar without bid-
ding, a man fell flat on his face in the main aisle, a
woman leaped on the platform and began exhorting,

REVIVALS. 55

while in the midst of shining faces, clapping hands,
liberated tongues, singing, shouting, mingled with
wails for mercy and cries of victory — salvation free

'r

and full flowed like a torrent.

"O Lord, send the power just now,
O Lord, send the power just now,
O I<ord, send the power just now,
And baptize every one."

VL

ALTAR WORK.

A?TER the sermon should be given the call for
penitents and seekers to come to the altar. Not
to do this is like throwing a seine in the river, and
neglecting to pull it in. It is like firing cannon on
the battle-field, with no after-charge, hand-to-hand en-
gagement, and captures. The pulpit is the battery,
while the altar is the storm-center of the battle, the
place where the greatest struggles are made and the
most marvelous victories won. Here Satan and his
dark hosts swoop down to fight the working, pray-
ing bands of Christ, to darken the minds and sadden
the hearts of the seekers, and to resist the heavenly
forces, which, while invisible to mortal eyes, are not
the less present. Here Doubt, Despondency, and
Despair flap their black wings above the altar battle-
field, hover over the prostrate and kneeling forms,
and settle like vultures to feed on every soul which
has been struck down by the devil. Here struggle
angels of light with demons of darkness. Here the
Holy Ghost descends like a dove, bringing his light,
flashing his joy, imparting his life, and at the same
time driving back the powers of the infernal world.

ALTAR WORK. $?

Here labor God's devoted followers, reasoning, ad-
vising, comforting, cheering, persuading, stimulating,
and, in a word, doing everything to help and deliver
souls that are endeavoring to find pardon or purity,
regeneration or sanctification.

It would not be possible to overestimate the value
of these altar services, that are spiritual battle-grounds
where sin is slain and the devil defeated; they are
plains of glory, where dead lives are quickened, souls
born unto God, and men and women baptized with
the Holy Ghost and with fire. It not only means a
present triumph, but a number of other victories
growing out of it and to follow in the lives and labors
of those who were restored, renewed, saved, and sanc-
tified at the time. When the "break," as it is called,
takes place at the altar, it means that the revival has
arrived, and has come to stay. This "break," or sud-
den fall or outpouring of the Spirit, does not occur
in the beginning of the meeting, but generally about
the fourth or fifth day. In some instances not before
the tenth or fifteenth. It comes as it did at Pentecost,
after days of patient, faithful, humble, importunate
waiting on God. The formal and fashionable bowing
down for a few minutes at the altar, attended by the
regulation number of prayers, will never be rewarded
with the glories of opening heavens, the descending
Dove, the voice of God, and flames of holy fire falling

58 HEART TALKS.

upon the soul. It is the protracted upward gaze, the
lingering, the continuous asking, which brings down
the Holy Ghost.

It is reserved for those who wait and labor to see
the most wonderful displays of divine power. They
continue to humble themselves, to supplicate, wait,
and expect; a half-hour passes away, then an hour;
the weak in faith and easily discouraged retire from
the church or tabernacle to house or tent. Those who
understand the altar and its possibilities, its amazing
fulcrum power, its position directly under the Throne
of Grace, still linger. Suddenly, like the swift light-
ning-flash and sharp crack of thunder is followed by
a downpour of rain, so suddenly and amazingly the
Spirit falls, and showers of heavenly grace come with
mighty outpour upon the people. Those who have
retired to their beds hear the shouts, outcries, weep-
ing, and laughter, blended with singing and prophesy-
ing. Some come running back to look and marvel
at the scene of shining faces, clapping hands, and leap-
ing forms. Only those who have patiently waited for
the spiritual flash, report, and downpour, best under-
stand and appreciate such a scene of grace.

It requires a good deal to be a successful altar
worker. It takes courage to begin the work, and
deadness to human opinion to carry it on. It de-
mands patience, wisdom, gentleness, mental quick-

ALTAR WORK:. 59

ness, abundance of resource, victorious faith, and
power with God to run the altar successfully. John
S. Inskip was an acknowledged king here. He could
take charge at a moment, when, under a lifeless ser-
mon and drooping service, all hope of victory would
be gone from the most sanguine, and lo ! in five min-
utes a great triumph would be seen, and salvation
free and full would flow like a mighty tide.

Not all are as gifted and as wonderfully qualified
for leadership as Inskip ; but all can be effective, and,
under God's blessing, have victory over Satan, sin,
and the world in every altar battle.

While the writer has seen the wisdom of certain
methods, the power attending some kinds of propo-
sitions, yet he would not rely on them. He has ob-
served that the indispensable preparation and quali-
fication for a successful altar-worker is a calm, strong
faith, and an overflowing experience of holiness. A
man full of the Holy Ghost carries with him a sphere
of spiritual influence which is soon felt at the altar.
His ringing words, shining face, buoyant spirit, per-
fect confidence in and reliance upon God, inspires
faith, causes the seeker to pray and expect and finally
to receive with rapturous heart and speech the bless-
ings of pardon and purity.

Yet even the spiritual and successful worker will
find, that what will do one time will not answer at

60 HEART TALKS.

another. The Spirit is a free Spirit, and will not work
in one groove. He is the leader himself, and would
have us to follow him.

Then, again, the mental and spiritual condition
of those at the altar is not always the same. Some-
times consecration is to be emphasized ; at other times
faith. Sometimes prayer is needed; on other occa-
sions the seekers need to be urged to step out on the
promises. On some occasions singing is felt to be
the need ; and again the best work is done when every-
thing is still, and souls are left with Christ, to deal
with him personally and alone. In most of my meet-
ings I gladly use all the workers I can get, and have
seen God's blessing many times on their labors; but
in one of my services I called off the workers, and
told the seekers to look to Christ alone, without hu-
man help. They did so, and the power began at once
to come down, and the fire to fall, and there ensued
one of the most wonderful scenes of grace I ever
beheld.

Singing is almost invariably used in getting people
to the altar ; and yet one night, although a volume of
inspiring song filled the house, so few were coming
forward, that I requested perfect silence, and in the
stillness which followed asked all who wanted pardon
or holiness to come to the altar, and instantly there
was a rush. We never know at first which method

ALTAR WORK. 6 1

the Spirit is going to bless, and so have to follow on
softly, looking to him for guidance. He will always
lead if we are true to him.

This very difference in his leadings makes us to
realize our dependence upon him all the time, and,
while using the means of grace and "methods," as
we call them, we feel that all are in vain without the
Holy Ghost.

As we have just said, we can never tell at first
what the Spirit is going to bless. Some days every
proper, strong, and wise effort will have been put
forth, and there has been no answering fire from
heaven, when suddenly, on the utterance of a few
simple words, the Holy Ghost will fall.

One day I had done everything I could. The altar
was full, and not a soul was "getting through," as it
is called. Wearied in mind and body, I arose, and
said:

"It is just the question whether we will believe
God or not. He has said certain things, and left them
in his book. Are they true or not? He says, 'The
altar sanctifieth the gift.' Will you believe it or not?"

I had hardly gotten the words out of my mouth,
when three or four people leaped to their feet, with
illuminated faces and rejoicing in the blessing.

It seemed to me that I had said the same thing
repeatedly and much more strikingly before; but

62 HEART TALKS.

somehow the Power came down this time, and the
glory of God filled the altar and the people.

In a meeting one night in Kentucky, the altar
was filled with men and women ; but not a soul could
be converted or sanctified. The preacher exhorted
and instructed, the brethren prayed, the choir and
audience sung, but everything was locked up. Sud-
denly a young married woman from the country,
dressed plainly in calico with an unadorned straw hat
on her head, and her baby on her arm, began walking
down the side of the altar. As she walked, she with
her disengaged hand would touch the bowed heads,
or gently pat the shoulders of the seekers. As she
did so, she was singing in a sweet, unaffected way :

"Come, O come to me, said Jesus;

Come, and I will give you rest;
I will take away the burden

From thy heavy laden breast;
No matter who the wand'rer,

Nor how far he's gone astray,
Behold whosoever cometh,

I will comfort him to-day."

The scene which followed could scarcely be cred-
ited, if it had not been witnessed by hundreds. There
was something in the very touch and helplessness of
this simple, devout woman, which the Holy Ghost
wanted; and as her voice sounded and hand de-
scended, the Spirit fell first upon one and then an-
other, until, leaping to their feet, the altar was sur-

ALTAR WORK. 63

rounded by a now laughing, crying, shouting com-
pany of saved and sanctified souls.

As an illustration of good sense and readiness to
change and adapt one's self to the hour, with the view
of extricating and delivering a meeting that was at a
low ebb, I recall the following scene:

The preacher had labored hard in the pulpit for
an hour one warm night. The sermon was a failure.
Not only the preacher saw it, but the congregation
felt it. The preacher sat down and called on a certain
minister to conclude. As the latter arose, a number
wondered what on earth he proposed doing, and
could do. Every eye was on him as he came slowly
forward, and stood quietly looking at the great audi-
ence before him. He was a young man, and had a
task before him which older heads might well have
dreaded. For a full minute he stood silent, with a
solemn, almost abstracted look, and then began
singing:

"Oh, 'twas love, 'twas wondrous love,

The love of God to me;
It brought my Savior from above,
To die on Calvary."

At once the vision of the dying Savior was brought
up to the minds of the people, and that with an im-
mediate melting effect. Here was no call to come
to the altar, no covering up with apologies for a pul-
pit failure ; but an appeal to consider the love of God

64 HEART TALKS.

in the form of his dying Son hanging on the cross.
How trifling seemed all excuses for holding back from
duty and God with that crucified figure before us !

The hymn, so well known, went on, and when the
singer reached the last stanza, the weeping was gen-
eral, and heads bowed all over the building. The
preacher then lifted his hand, and said, "All who
would like to come and bow down at the altar for
pardon and sanctification, can do so" — and instantly
there was a rush from all sides. The people literally
fell down, while such soul-sobs and cries went upward
as must have made heaven rejoice.

But still a greater than the sudden rescuer of a
meeting is the man who understands the "hanging
on" principle and spirit.

All who have been much at protracted and camp
meetings, have noticed that some preachers or work-
ers would not give up the struggle at the altar, al-
though ten, eleven, and even twelve o'clock at night
had come and gone. You left him in the midst of
the silent, gloomy line of penitents and seekers. He
could not or would not go. He was weary, but still
remained with prayer, exhortation, instruction, and
song. You remember him leaning against a post
near the hour of midnight, singing, "Here I give my
all to Thee," and punctuating the hymn with cries,
"Have you done it?" "Are you sure all is on the

ALTAR WORK. 65

altar?" "Will you put all on now?" "Is everything
there?"

Then would follow again the stanza beginning,
"Here I give my all to Thee." You grew wearied,
and withdrew. In the distance you looked back, and
there he was still laboring, a fatigued, overworked
man, but unwilling to give up until victory came. He
knew God was near, and Christ was faithful. He had
a faith worthy of the name. You had not been gone
ten minutes when the fire fell, the Spirit answered to
the blood, and salvation rolled. Over twenty-five
souls were converted and sanctified that night !

Some of my meetings have been remarkable for
the weeping spirit of the people. Many nights I have
beheld the altar wet, and one time drip with the tears
rained upon it. Men may say what they will against
the mourner' s-bench, but I have found it an unspeak-
able power for good everywhere I go, and I expect to
hold fast to it as a heaven-blessed method of getting
people saved and sanctified. I find it becomes a wall
between the man and his old life ; it is a cross for the
old self-life to die upon, and a battle-ground where
conflicts between three worlds rage, and where des-
tinies of immortal souls are decided. O, the many,
many, many hours I have spent at the altar after the
sermon, pressing the battle! No battle can compare
for a moment with the importance and results of one
S

66 HEART TALKS.

of these altar fights. It is a fight, indeed. Angels
from above and devils from beneath struggle for the
possession of the souls at the altar. Christ is present,
the Holy Spirit is there, and Satan is on hand. Often-
times there are few workers to help the preacher, while
a cold, stiff Church membership sit back and look
on with skeptical remark or expressionless faces.
Great is the temptation of the evangelist to give up
at such times ; but he who holds on will invariably see
victory. Sometimes it comes in a half-hour; some-
times it requires an hour, or two hours, before the
rock cracks, the dark, oppressive presence is lifted,
and the power and the glory of God come down.
Very many are the victories I have seen at the altar,
in the joy of which I would forget the anguish of the
long waiting and exhausting labor about the wonder-
ful altar rail. Preaching a sermon is easy work com-
pared to this kind of service.

I have been often amused at preachers rushing at
the beginning of one of these great altar conflicts to
the choir, and there singing most lustily. They
wanted to be the brass band on a neighboring hill
and furnish music, while from afar they watched the
battle. More than once I have told them that they
were in easy position — that it is far easier to sing in
the choir than work in the altar. It takes but little

ALTAR WORK. 67

knowledge of musical notes to bring one into a sing-
ing band ; but to work patiently and successfully with
people at the altar requires a number of things, not
only knowledge of God, and a close walk with God,
but knowledge of self and knowledge of men. Souls
have to be dealt with in wisdom and love. They can
not be forced, but must be led. I have seen people
driven from the altar by coarse manners and offensive
questions. If ever we need good sense, tact, patience,
sympathy, love, firmness, and a good religious experi-
ence, it is in the altar work. I have not even men-
tioned the physical exhaustion connected with the
work. But at last, when the victory comes ; when the
faithful instruction and song and prayers have been
blessed of God and done their work; when suddenly
the light flashes downward from the skies, rapture
is poured into penitential souls, devils are cast out,
spirits are made free, and songs, shouts, and praises
abound; when joyful weeping, happy laughter, hand-
shaking, embracing, and prophesying in the Bible
way is the order of the day, then it is seen that it pays
to push the fight, press the altar work, and put God
to the test.

A single moment of one of these great altar vic-
tories recompenses us, in its sweetness and glory, for
all the toils of hours and days that have preceded the

68 HEART TALKS.

slow-coming triumph. The pain of long travail is
utterly forgotten in the joy that God's truth has been
born again into the world in the shape of saved, re-
claimed, and sanctified sons and daughters. Praise
God for the altar !

VII.
THE SECRET OF THE LORD.

FOR fourteen years of my Christian life I failed to
see what was in the Bible expression, "The secret
of the Lord." That there was a secret the Scripture
taught plainly and repeatedly. The veil in the Taber-
nacle and Temple, as it hid a certain part of the sanc-
tuary from all eyes but one, and that person a type of
Christ, confirmed the fact. Even in the Holy of
Holies the two angels bent over the ark as if in in-
vestigation and profound study, and so kept promi-
nent the same truth. Later still, Paul speaks of "the
mystery of the gospel hid for ages, but revealed in the
last days to the saints." And still later, John writes
about a white stone given to the Overcomer in the
Church, and in it a new name written which no man
knoweth saving he that receiveth it.

For quite a while we supposed this mystery and
secret was God's unseen, unrecognized presence in
the world. After that we thought it meant Christ's
incarnation..

We were driven from these and a number of other
false conclusions by the explicit statement of God's

Word, which at first we did not notice, that the white

69

TO HEART TALKS.

stone was given not to a repenting sinner, but to an
overcomer in the Church. Still farther, that the mys-
tery of the gospel, hid for ages, was revealed in the
last days to the saints. If it had been pardon spoken
of, and the saving knowledge of God, it would have
been a revelation to sinners, and not saints. Then we
remembered that pardon had been known from the
days of righteous Abel to the present hour; but this
peculiar revelation of grace made to saints was given
in the "last days."

After this we noticed that Paul declared plainly
what the mystery or secret was : "Christ formed within
us the hope of glory." Not Christ for us, or with us,
but in us. Christ not appearing to a sinner; but
Christ entering and dwelling in the Christian. The
Divine Visitor transformed into a perpetual abider.

The Savior alluding to it said to his disciples that
on the condition of their keeping his commandments
He would come into them and take up His abode
with them.

The experience unquestionably came to Paul, who
says that it pleased God after He had called him by
His grace to "reveal his Son in me." We all know
that the occurrence near Damascus was not an inward,
but an outward, revelation of Christ. The reference
is evidently to something which transpired at a later
period. The blessed secret is that there is a precious,

THE SECRET OF THE LORD. Jl

beautiful experience for the child of God. It is for
them that fear him. Sinners do not fear God. The
Bible says so. There is, then, a holy secret to be im-
parted to the Christian if he is willing to accept.

There are several facts about the matter which im-
press the writer.

One is, that it is the secret of the Lord.

This explains why we can not make it clear to
those who have it not. If a certain man has a secret,
no one else but himself can tell it. People may guess
what it is, but can not know assuredly until he is
pleased to declare it.

This simple fact applied to the spiritual life will
at once explain what has often puzzled the sanctified
man. Filled with the blessing, yet he is unable of,
and by himself, to make the experience clear to one
who has it not.

Letters are written, sermons preached, books
loaned, and conversations are held in vain. The face
fails to light up with appreciation, and the mind to
grasp the meaning of what has been said. The sanc-
tified man thought that all he had to do was to run
home and tell his family, rush around .to his church
and pastor and proclaim it, and all would immediately
see, agree, be glad, and seek and find. To his amaze-
ment the countenances of his hearers remained heavy
and cloudy, while some were grieved, and still others

72 HEART TALKS.

displeased. He told them carefully how he had ob-
tained the blessing, and thought they would follow
him ; explained what it did for the soul, and supposed
they would understand. To his surprise and sorrow
they did neither one nor the other, and he was left
to marvel.

If he had remembered the Scripture he would not
have been astonished at the result. God had prepared
him for the disappointment in the words, "I will give
him a white stone, and in the white stone a new name
written, which no man knoweth saving he that re-
ceiveth it." And still again in the words, "The secret
of the Lord." It is the Lord's hidden truth, and it
takes him to reveal it.

A second fact is, that there is a certain attitude
or position needful to secure a secret.

When one concludes to repose a confidence in an-
other, he draws the proposed confidant aside and
whispers, while the one thus trusted bends the head
and gives undivided attention to the utterance which
a little distance makes inaudible.

So in securing this secret from the Lord, it is not
to be obtained in a careless way. There is the draw-
ing aside from the crowd, and an attitude of the soul
which corresponds to what is seen when we behold
the bent head, rapt face, and fixed attention of the
hearer to all that is being said.

THE SECRET OF THE LORD. 73

Here again we see the failure of many Christians
in the obtainment of the blessed experience. They do
not observe the conditions which are inexorably de-
manded of those who would enter within the veil. It
is not truer than if a man fails to draw near and listen
intently to what is whispered to him in a noisy street,
he fails to get the intended information; than, if a
person neglects to wait in a certain manner upon God,
he will never know the secret of the Lord, will never
be wiser concerning the second work of grace in the
soul. There are just as fixed laws in the spiritual as
in the natural world. Happy is the man who obeys
them. As a farmer does not and can not make a
good crop by laziness or an accident, so men do not
rise and shine in the character world, are not caught
up into great heights of the love and knowledge of
God, by a stumbling chance or by waiting with listless
eyes and idle hands for something to happen.

If the soul would see deep into the mysteries of
heaven and grace, the vision will not come in a hap-
hazard way. The wonderful experience of Daniel cost
him weeks of lonely prayer and fasting on the banks
of the river Hiddekel. It took all that was meant in
the words "exiled to Patmos" to open the heavens to
John. The baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire
came at the end of ten days of ardent prayer and pa-

74 HEART TALKS.

tient, faithful waiting on God in an upper room, away
from the busy streets and talking circles of Jerusalem.

A man who prays three or four hours daily, is felt
by others to be ahead in some important particulars.
The preacher who has been on his knees an hour in
humble, tearful waiting on God, begins in his sermon,
not with his audience, but beyond and above them
in tenderness of heart, clearness of spiritual vision,
and conscious strength of soul; moreover, the audi-
Lence feels it.

Look where we will, the faithful working of this
spiritual law is beheld. He who turns aside sees the
flaming bush, and talks with God. He who waits on
the Lord renews his strength, and mounts up on
eagle's wings. He who wraps the mantle about his
head at the entering in of the cave and listens, will
hear the still, small voice. And he who will lay all
on the altar, and patiently, believingly, and prayer-
fully look upward, will be rewarded by the descend-
ing fire of the Holy Ghost, and the blessed secret of
the Lord.

It is simply absurd for a man to say there is no
such secret, when he refuses to comply with the con-
ditions of obtaining the revelation, and it is lost time
on our part to listen to their ridicule, arguments,
doubts, and denials.

A third fact connected with the secret of the Lord

THE SECRET OF THE LORD. 75

is the remarkable effect it has upon the person who
has been put in its possession and enjoyment.

The writer has seen an individual tell another a
secret, and instantly saw the face light up, a pleased
look or smile overspread the countenance, and an
almost indescribable expression spring in the eye, that
came from the consciousness of a new and valued pos-
session.

So we have been impressed with the people of
God who obtained this secret. It was their smiling
looks, shining faces, and speaking eyes that first
deeply impressed us with the distinctiveness and
superiority of the gift of grace they were enjoying.

The hard lines of the face had been changed into
curves of pleasing repose; the lips, even when not
speaking, seemed to declare inward rest ; the eyes had
a quiet, sunny look, like unto deep, clear springs ; and
the voice possessed a note of gladness, and at times
an exultant ring, which impressed the dullest spiritual
hearer.

It was the beaming light and joy of this secret
which made the Irish gaze fascinated on Fletcher's
face, when they did not understand a word that he
uttered. They said there was heaven in the man's
countenance.

Such a beautiful look the writer, when a young
preacher, saw on the face of a lady who had been

76 HEART TALKS.

an invalid seventeen years. For all that weary time
she had sat in a large chair, and crippled and stiffened
with rheumatism, unable to do anything to help her-
self or others, quietly waited for death to relieve her
from her acute sufferings. Six years were added to
the seventeen, and still, with a patient smile on her
lips, and that holy restful light in her face, she waited
for God to say it was enough ajid call her home. Of
the hundreds who visited her, all marked the pure,
unearthly joy which filled her, and that was not only
seen in the eye, and heard in the voice, but felt in her
presence. The secret of the Lord kept her not only
uncomplaining, but joyful through a quarter of a cen-
tury of suffering.

She finally died, and they buried her, sitting in
her invalid chair, which she had transformed into a
throne, and in which she had ruled over many hearts
as a crowned queen among the daughters of God.
She died with the sweet, old-time smile on her lips,
and was buried with it still resting on her face. There
she is under the ground to-day, sitting in her throne-
chair, and waiting for the coming of her Lord, whose
voice will make her spring from the dust to meet him
in the air, and whose blessed secret kept her strong,
patient, and victorious through many years of as great
pain and sore trouble as almost ever fell to the lot of
any of God's children.

VIII.

WITHOUT REPUTATION.

'T'HE writer once confounded reputation with char-
*• acter in the religious life. The two are very
different. Reputation is what men think of us, and
character is what we are in the sight of God. The
first is what we appear to be; the second is what we
really are. The one is a pleasant possession, but not
essential; the other is blessed, and we must have it
to stand before and live with God. We draw some
reflections from the Scriptural words, "of no repu-
tation."

One is, that it is possible to have reputation with-
out character.

This springs from the fact that people can not
read one another's hearts, and are ignorant of each
other's lives. The public life may be one thing, and
the private life another. A man may have a street
face and a home face, and the two not agree. As the
story goes, he may be a salmon in his own community,
and a codfish in a distant city where he has not a
single acquaintance. The countenance may be affable,
the words pleasant, and the thoughts dark and foul.

Hence it is that people are in high places to-day

77

78 HEART TALKS.

who would not be if they were known. The Bible
prepares us for great shocks of surprise at the Day
of Judgment, where reputation shall be utterly ig-
nored, and character alone shall be demanded. Now
and then sudden exposures in public and social life
furnish us brief but powerful commentaries on these
solemn allusions of the Scripture.

A lady was once speaking to me about her dead
husband, saying that he detested hypocrites, and was
filled with a spirit of honesty and honor himself. And
yet we knew, and had the proof, of her husband being
a petty thief. Only a few of us possessed the circum-
stance, and kept it secret. The man's ardent denun-
ciations of sin sounded very oddly to the little group
who really knew him. The community did not know.
He died with a good reputation, but without the char-
acter many supposed he had. A life superstructure
had been erected without a foundation.

At another time a prominent lady, apologizing
to us for her husband's absence from Church, said,
"But he is ripe for heaven."

We brooded over the speech of this unsuspecting
woman, and it actually became oppressive as we re-
membered that not less than a dozen people possessed
facts which were sufficient to blight and blast her
marital happiness forever.

Great will be the astonishment of families,

WITHOUT REPUTATION. 79

Churches, communities, and multitudes on the Day
of Days, when the real man and woman are brought to
light, and God shows the difference between reputa-
tion and character.

Again, it is possible to have character without
reputation.

Paul tells us that Christ had none, that he was
"of no reputation." The same fact is brought out
in his reference to the disciples of the Lord. The
Savior himself said that all manner of evil should be
spoken about them; they would be cast out of syna-
gogues and put to death ; and people in visiting those
things upon them would think they were doing God
service.

No one can question the fact of their possession of
religious character, and yet they were without repu-
tation.

So was Luther in his day, and Wesley in his time :
they were jeered, ridiculed, denounced, and perse-
cuted all through life; the churches were closed to
them; ministers and magistrates united to condemn
and oppose them; and yet they were men filled with
the Holy Ghost, died in the faith, and went to heaven.
These facts ought to bring many of God's servants
great comfort to-day. Shut out from Churches, dis-
counted in certain social and ecclesiastical circles,
struck at and condemned in religious and secular

80 HEART TALKS.

papers, yet it is possible to have not only a conscience
without offense, but to be the temple of the Holy
Ghost and filled with the fullness of God. It is pos-
sible to have one's stock very low on earth, and that
same religious stock be very high in heaven. It is
possible to possess a pure heart, a genuine Christian
character, and yet have the Church, as we see it in
some places to-day, ashamed and afraid of us, and
downright opposed to us.

So, just as one can have reputation without char-
acter, this strange, old world furnishes the equally
remarkable spectacle of a person having character
without any reputation.

Again, it is possible to have no reputation, and
still be happy.

The fact is, it is very hard to be happy in a con-
tinuous way with what is termed a reputation. We
have studied the cases of orators, musicians, authors,
and all kinds of celebrities and prominent folks, and
we have discovered that, as a rule, they are the un-
easiest of people. A man with a reputation on his
hands has an elephant to take care of. So much for
its cumbersomeness. Again, it reminds me of an in-
valid, a baby at night, and a costly pet, all three in
one. It needs a vast amount of attention, and in its
exactions is perfectly tyrannical. It matters not how
well its possessor "spoke his piece" before, he must

WITHOUT REPUTATION. 8 1

excel, and more than excel every time, and delight
and astonish everybody, or the man is gloomy, irri-
table, and miserable.

Apply this spirit to the ministerial, ecclesiastical,
oratorical, or any other kind of reputation, and behold
the result. I knew a man once whose great pride as
a preacher was in having answered the roll-call of his
Conference over thirty years without a single break.
To have failed on the thirty-third time would have
given him as much anguish as the commission of a
sin. It was a kind of annual misery with him.

A layman boasted that he had sat forty years in
one place in the church. He had also remained in the
same spot in other respects. His pride took hold of
the first fact. Here was his reputation. For any one
even to attempt to take his seat angered him. His
reputation cost him a good deal of mental peace, as
all frequently saw.

There is a kind of pseudo-religious reputation born
of the fact of years of church attendance, identifi-
cation with various kinds of Church work, a cordial
reception in the best ecclesiastical circles, and a stand-
ing well with Church functionaries and prominent
people. This, like the rest, is filled with disquietude,
and demands to be recognized, petted, patted, and
generally coddled, smiled upon, and praised. It is full
of fears of losing its peculiar ground, and others tak-

82 HEART TALKS.

ing its place. To lay all this on the altar is one of the
hardest of spiritual performances, and is the explana-
tion why so few of that class of Christians obtain the
blessing of sanctification.

Just a glance over the list hastily given is sufficient
to convince the thoughtful that to get rid of reputa-
tion would be a relief all around, especially to the man
who has groaned under the burden for months or
years.

The fact is, that the happiest people the writer
ever knew were those who had lost all they had in
this line. With this loss had gone Church patronage,
social honor, a certain kind of public reverence and
attention, together with the estimation formerly en-
tertained of their good sense and general levelheaded-
ness. And yet these same people were bubbling over
continually with a joy beyond all language to de^
scribe. All sanctified people have had third and sev-
enth heaven experiences here, and it is with difficulty
that we restrain our pen at this point.

Still again, it is possible to have no reputation,
and be very useful.

We sometimes wonder that so many overlook the
remarkable truth that the individuals who have
wrought most spiritual good for this world, had no
ecclesiastical reputation during their lives. It was
after they were dead that their detractors and opposers

WITHOUT REPUTATION. 83

took time to read what they had written and observe
their works, and then the world saw that angels had
been in their midst, and they knew it not; that God
himself had spoken to them through human lips, and
they had failed to know and receive him.

It does not require reputation to achieve great
things for humanity. The Bible proves this in the
record of the disciples, and history confirms the
thought in the deeds of Luther, Wesley, Booth, and
a host of others. The fact is, that reputation seems
to be in the way of workers. It clogs, cumbers, hin-
ders, embarrasses, paralyzes, and in many ways keeps
one from doing for God, and especially doing his best
for God.

It is well to have nothing to distract and absorb
us when Christ calls us to labor for him ; it is well to
have both hands empty for him. If we have other
gods and idols of our own, even though that idol be
only reputation, we will never be and do for the Sa-
vior what he desires. Such a man can not afford to
speak at every providential call because he has an
oratorical fame to support and perpetuate ; or another
person will not engage in mission or slum work be-
cause a certain social prestige is lost by such a life.
So the soul-stirring and life-saving message was not
delivered, and the diamond in the gutter was not
found and lifted up.

84 HEART TALKS.

We know of a city where there are seven missions,
and they are all run by people who have lost their
ecclesiastical or Church reputation. Not a denomi-
nation in the place, nor all the denominations com-
bined, have been sufficient to run a single mission;
and yet here is a body of people laughed at, despised,
and in a sense ostracized and tabooed, running seven
distinct works.

A concluding thought is this, that there is going
to be a great revolution of opinion and judgment at
the Last Day.

People who stood very high on the earth will
stand very low before the Bar of Christ when all hearts
shall be known. A great many "big men," so-called
in this world, will be found to be exceedingly small
under the marvelous light of eternity. The sudden
shrinkage of individuals who were admired, quoted,
and even feared on earth, will occasion one of the
most shocking sensations of the Judgment-day. Men
will never cease to talk about those dreadful collapses
and downfalls, and which were long ago predicted
by Christ under the figure of the house built on a
foundation of sand.

On the other hand, some people who were over-
looked, or who were discounted, despised, laughed at,
and rejected, will loom up in such moral grandeur,
such mighty proportions of spiritual attainment, that

WITHOUT REPUTATION. 85

the astonishment will be even greater here than the
amazement already described.

We knew quite a wealthy man who recently died.
He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South. Out of a large fortune he gave thirty dollars
a year to the support of the Church, and was bitterly
opposed to missions, especially those in the foreign
field. Yet this man had a great ascendency in his
Church. Perhaps court was paid to him because of
what was hoped he might yet do. But he did noth-
ing. He died without doing anything. The outside
world did not, and does not, know the littleness of his
Christian and Church life. They were much im-
pressed with his imposing form and rolling guttural
speech. They thought he was a pillar in the Church,
when he was only a sleeper. They imagined that he
supported the Church, when he only occasionally en-
tertained the bishops.

The sight of this man shrinking, drawing in, draw-
ing up, drying up, and generally going to nothing
under the solemn, silent, searching gaze of the Son
of God will be one of the sickening and horrifying
visions of the Day of Judgment.

The writer is acquainted with a woman who, filled
with the Holy Ghost and burning up with the love of
souls, started with her slender means a little mission
in one of our large cities. She was ridiculed, slan-

86 HEART TALKS.

dered, and struck at in many ways. She bore all
silently and patiently, founded a Sabbath-school of
fifty children picked up from the street, and with her
simple revival services among people who never went
to Church, saw twenty clear conversions in three
months. This was not a large number, but it hap-
pened to be a larger average than that of a large
Church of several million members, which reported
sixteen thousand conversions for one year's work.
The denomination referred to has seventeen thousand
preachers on its roll ; so there were a thousand preach-
ers who did not have a single convert. As for the
three million members, according to figures, they did
nothing. The woman I referred to brought twenty
souls to Christ in three months. As examined in a
comparative way, her work begins to grow upon one.
Then, when we remember what the Savior said about
the worth of a soul, her achievement was great in-
deed. In addition, when we notice that in the line of
soul-saving she did the work of eighty preachers, the
whole thing, in a strange, solemn way, prepares us for
the astounding scenes of the Day of Reward and
Doom.

Aladdin saw a small copper lamp or vessel lying
on the seashore near him. As he looked upon it a
thread of smoke began ascending from the vessel, and
spreading and enlarging until it became a great cloud,

WITHOUT REPUTATION. 87

and then assumed the shape of a gigantic geni. After
a while the shape disappeared, the cloud of smoke re-
turning with steadily diminishing proportions to the
diminutive metal lamp at Aladdin's feet.

The fictitious scene becomes all powerful when
applied to the occurrences at the Judgment. So will
we see the swagger, strut, puff, and swell of a mere
reputation steadily disappear before our eyes. It may
once have filled the land and overshadowed thou-
sands ; and now behold ! It is lost in a poor, morally
shriveled creature who cowers at the feet of Christ.

And, thank God ! we shall also see the other sight.
We will behold coming forth to public view from some
humble, despised, and wronged one of earth, the
beauty, grace, glory, dignity, and majesty of a Christ-
like nature and life. It can be hidden and kept down
and shut in no longer. It is God's own work wrought
in the face of Satanic hate and every human discour-
agement. It is something to rejoice over and to praise
God for. And it is a piece of justice done to suffering
man as well. And so the glory of that life, so long
bound in with hardship and thrust into obscurity,
shall stream forth at last, and fill the firmament of ob-
servation.

IX.

THE COMFORT IN TEMPTATION.

T^EMPTATION is anything but a joyous experi-
•*• ence. Whether it is realized as a cloud upon the
spirit, or a violent attack upon faith and love, or an
assault through the appetites, it is something which
no Christian desires. It is a moral necessity in this
world, so we are told, and believe, and also discover;
but we are not the less delighted that in heaven we
will feel its power no more forever.

As temptation is a heavy-hearted experience, the
caption of this article, "Comfort in Temptation,"
would strike the reader at first as contradictory. But
one is as true as the other; in fact, the apostle tells
us to count it all joy when we fall into divers tempta-
tions. So the two can go together; we can be in
heaviness through manifold trials of this kind, and
yet be joyful.

We, however, are not referring in this article to
the joy of which St. James speaks. The "Comfort"
we are writing about springs from other facts, and
we are glad to bring such consolation to those who
are tempted and tried by the great adversary of their

souls.

88

THE COMFORT IN TEMPTATION. 89

The first comfort is clearly stated in the Bible in
the words, "There hath no temptation taken you but
such as is common to man."

If there is not strength and consolation in this
declaration to the tried soul, then we know nothing
about human nature. To be lost in a vast wilderness
is a paralyzing experience ; but to see signs of human
life here and there would immediately cause hope to
spring up in the heart, and strength into the limb.
The successful climber of the dizzy heights of the
Matterhorn brought a great company of people to do
what otherwise they never would have had the nerve
to have accomplished. After Columbus had gone
across the dreaded Atlantic, and thereby dissipated its
superstitious terrors, there came a host of adventurers
on his track with great cheerfulness and assurance.
The moral effect of having been preceded by another
in some line of toil and difficulty is tremendous. What
man has done and endured can be borne and accom-
plished again by man. This is the reasoning of men,
and the very thought is inspiration and life itself.

This is the same principle of comfort embraced
in the statement that the dark, sad temptations of life
which try us so severely are not peculiar to us, but
are common to man. Others have wrestled with and
conquered these things of the spiritual life which are
now dismaying us; others have trod these deserts, or

90 HEART TALKS.

plowed these seas, and found a San Salvador beyond.
In spite of long sailing there has been land, and land-
ing, and coming forth, and victory for others, and the
same can be for us.

The desolate state of the heart ; the lonely, friend-
less feeling of the soul ; the wave of sickening doubt ;
the suggestion that friends have ceased to love you,
that health will fail, and usefulness cease, and the
poorhouse be at last your refuge — all these are influ-
ences and whispers which the accuser of God and of
his brethren has injected into many a faithful heart
that is now in rapture near the throne, striking a
golden harp or waving a palm of eternal victory.

Under temptation, one's rapturous feelings go
down; so did those of the holy Madame Guyon. A
great fear arises as to divine deliverance from trouble ;
the saintly Payson went through the same experience.
The heart sinks for a while under a lonely trial ; so did
Paul, who, when he met friends at last at the Three
Taverns, "thanked God and took courage."

The most pious and influential preacher in one
of our Southern States said that once for fully thirty
minutes he was conscious of a violent inward urging
to be profane. He said his soul recoiled in horror
from it, that he recognized the dark influences as the
work of the devil, but that the distressing movement
was there, nevertheless.

THE COMFORT IN TEMPTATION. QI

The thought of suicide as an escape from sickness
and trouble is purely Satanic, and yet it has come to
the best of people, who have resisted it with proper
promptness and disapproval, knowing full well it came
from Satan, and that it stood for a sin which, from its
very nature, was unpardonable.

It is certainly a great mental relief in the midst
of sore experiences, when Satan would have us believe
they are peculiar to us, thereby making us feel we
are the worst of all God's creatures — I say it is blessed
to the soul to hear God's Word affirming, "There hath
no temptation taken you but such as is common to
man." Such a statement upon the part of heaven is
bound to bring the sweetest consolation to the soul.

A second comfort in temptation is found in the
words that, "God is faithful, who will not suffer you
to be tempted above that ye are able."

According to these words there is no excuse for
men who fall under temptation. The temptation was
not greater than they could have borne. This is God's
own declaration, and we believe God.

Those who go down under the assault of the
Evil One, invariably begin to whine and whimper
about it, saying they could not help it ; that the assault
was of such a nature that they could not resist; that
they were, so to speak, overpowered. But the Bible
says they do not tell the truth, that they fell with a

92 HEART TALKS.

superior force in them. They went down before some-
thing weaker than themselves. A man has fallen
under the blow of a boy's hand! Let us read the
Word of God again, "God is faithful, who will not
suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able." So,
then, according to this, they could have endured the
attack.

This same statement, which puts the fall of the
Christian in a new light, also fills the tempted but
as yet unfallen child of God with great comfort
There is no need to fall. Greater is He that is in
us, than the devil and the world outside of us. The
powers of darkness will be held in check; they will
not be allowed to do their worst upon us. The winds
and waves of hell will be weighed and gauged by the
Divine Hand before they are allowed to beat upon His
servant. In a word, there is no necessity for spiritual
foundering and shipwreck.

Under the light of this clear Bible statement down
go the timeworn excuses for falling in "the smell
of the wine at the Lord's table," "the odor of a sa-
loon," "the power of habit," "the force of suggestion,"
"the influence of a smile," "the touch of a hand," etc.

Under this jubilee blast of liberty we can go as
free men past saloons, be delivered from habit, keep
strong under look and touch of evil, and be more than
conquerors through Him who loved us.

THE COMFORT IN TEMPTATION. 93

A third comfort in temptation is declared in the
words, "He will with the temptation also make a
way to escape." Here is something more than
strength to endure promised; it is actual deliverance
and escape.

There are several ways in which God can deliver
us from the hour and power of temptation.

One is by the removal of the object.

This we do not believe is frequently done, as our
probation, from the nature of the case, demands that
we be morally tested and tried. So to put us on trial,
and then remove the very class and character of things
which will declare and reveal us, would be to act con-
tradictorily, and, indeed, absurdly. If we are not
tempted and tried, there can be no Day of Rewards
for us. Still there are times when God, who knows
how much we can endure, will remove the object that
under present conditions might be too powerful for
us, and allow it to come later to the attack, when we
are better prepared.

Again He delivers us by urging His tempted fol-
lower to a precipitate flight.

Time was when we regarded a man's avoidance
of a place of moral danger, and withdrawal from cer-
tain social surroundings as a confession of weakness
and an indication of cowardice. But with the flight
of years we became convinced that such a course was

94 HEART TALKS.

proof, not only of the wisdom, but of moral courage as
well.

Flight in some instances is the best, truest, and
safest thing we can do. Joseph achieved an immortal
victory when he fled from his temptress. There are
places and circumstances where we can not tarry or
dally. To do so is to fall. The impulse or impression
to fly is from God himself, who would thereby save us.
The divine whisper has been unmistakable at times
in the life when there was peril, and when God saw the
danger was greater than the man dreamed. The in-
ward voice was to "fly!" And many have obeyed,
and fled, and so have been delivered, where others,
under a mistaken idea of Christian hardihood and
courage, have gone down.

We read in First Samuel that David asked the
Lord, "Will the men of Keilah deliver me into the
hands of Saul?" and God answered, "They will de-
liver thee up." This is a wonderfully impressive sen-
tence, and shows God's knowledge of men embraces
all that they are capable of doing, and what they will
or would do under certain circumstances. This same
Lord has lost none of his love for his people, and none
of his knowledge of the sinful heart. So His whispers
come to the soul as suddenly and clearly as ever warn-
ing was given to David, "If such and such a thing
takes place, you will fall into sin."

THE COMFORT IN TEMPTATION. 95

No one can read certain warnings given by Wes-
ley and others of the old writers on the line of discreet-
ness and circumspectness of life, without realizing that
they had come into strange experiences and had gath-
ered wisdom as the years went by.

There is an instrument lately invented by which
it is said the capacity of children for the strain and
drain of school hours is tested. God needs no ma-
chine of any kind to know how much we can bear
in the hour of moral trial. He knows us altogether.
He is aware that a protracted assault upon the soul
would cause some Christians to go down under certain
circumstances, and so, as it does not agree with His
plans to remove the cause, His method of deliverance
to his child is the whisper to fly.

The third way God saves us in and from tempta-
tion, is by a mighty pouring of divine grace and power
into the soul.

The effect of this is to so lift the Christian up
above the influence of the tempting thing or being,
that he marvels how he could ever have been so
shaken and stirred. Under increased divine love and
strength the whole matter looks so little and con-
temptible that he wonders how he could ever have
been moved by such an ambition, pursuit, pleasure,
or object.

This deliverance, considered in the light of reason,

96 HEART TALKS.

is like a man struggling to lift a two-hundred-pound
rock, when suddenly the power of two other men is
added to him, and lo! off he walks with the boulder
with the greatest ease. Or it is like a regiment sorely
beset in battle, just able to hold its ground, when, with
a great shout, a new regiment dashes to their aid, and
now with a still greater cry the two bodies of troops
charge and sweep the field before them.

In like manner there are "evil days," as Paul calls
them, when we simply "stand" and "having done all
to stand." God permits this for various reasons. The
very ability to stand, however, is victory in itself, and
a divine rescue; but God has a greater deliverance
still, and a much more marvelous victory. After
that we have suffered awhile, he will pour down re-
enforcements from the skies in the shape of brigades
and divisions of spiritual joy and power, and with a
shout of triumph we will charge over everything and
plant our triumphant banners upon the loftiest forts
and strongest citadels of our spiritual enemies.

It is as though the strength of three men had
been given to one. It is the arrival of the second
regiment to help the first. It is the bringing up of
the reserve corps, which had been held in watchful
observation of us, and at the critical moment was sent
rushing and flashing into the heart and life, and lo!

THE COMFORT IN TEMPTATION. 97

the hour, field, battle was ours, through Jesus Christ
our Lord.

The victory is so great that the Bible says we
are "more than conquerors." We not only have a
rock to kill Goliath, but several other stones are
placed in the wallet, or scrip, in case that if more
giants should come along we could slay, not only
one monster, but, under the mighty grace of God, de-
stroy the whole breed. It is a superabundant victory.

This is like God. This is the way He deals with
His people who are faithful to Him. He not only will
not give us over to the will of our enemies, but will,
according to David, lift our heads up above our ene-
mies. He has not only saved us in the past; but we
can say with Paul concerning the future, "The Lord
will deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve
me unto His heavenly kingdom."

X.

THE FOUR LOOKS TOWARD SODOM.

OODOM, with its natural beauty, sin, vileness, foul-
^ ness, God-forgetfulness, and heaven-defiance, is a
good type of the world. Upon this beautiful, wicked,
and doomed city four different looks were cast by four
different beings. They stand for truths of a solemn
and all-important nature. One day in my Bible read-
ing, I was suddenly impressed with this steady gazing
of individuals at this city of the plain, and the mind
as immediately associated and connected the looks
with the truths we have alluded to.

The first look was cast by Lot.

It was the gaze of a man who was getting his own
consent to live there. He was well aware of the char-
acter of the place, and yet looked with longing in the
gaze. According to the Bible he ought not to have
dreamed of abiding in such a place. The blessedness
of walking not with the ungodly, standing not with
sinners, and sitting not with the scornful, did not
begin with the Psalmist's time ; but, as a duty and ne-
cessity, commenced with the first century of the
world's history. Can a man take fire in his bosom

and be unburned, and handle pitch and be undefiled?

98

THE FOUR LOOKS TOWARD SODOM. 99

Lot's going to Sodom to live meant the corrup-
tion and destruction of his entire family. So much
do association and surroundings mean in this world.
And yet people, without a thought, make changes and
moves of various character that are certain to affect
disastrously their own household for time and eternity.

Sin begins with a look in forbidden directions.
So Eve fixed her eyes on the interdicted fruit, and
David from the roof of his palace gazed one evening
where he should not. So, while we sing there is life
for a look, there is also death from a look.

It is remarkable how evil will come in like a tide
if the first glance deepens into a gaze. The only hope
is to make a covenant with the eyes, and say, "I will
not look on any wicked thing."

It is also curious and significant to see how Lot
got into Sodom. It was not at a bound; but he first
"looked toward Sodom," then "journeyed toward
Sodom ;" later still, "he pitched his tent over against
Sodom," and finally found himself in Sodom. Each
successive step was doubtless attended with additional
gazing; but the first look witnessed the start to the
unholy place.

Some one says there are two ways of getting down
from a tower; one is to jump off, and the other to
come down by the steps. So there is a way of going
rapidly with a single leap into sin and ruin ; but very

100 HEART TALKS.

few take that route. The great majority come down
by the steps, by the successive stages of moral lapse
typified in the expressions, "looking toward," "jour-
neying in the direction," and "pitching the tent over
against Sodom."

The thing to do is to avoid the first look, and if
that has been cast, to say, "I will look no more."

Once, when riding along a country road, I saw
a bird charmed by a snake. The reptile lay full
length on the limb of a tree, and had its eyes fixed
on its spellbound victim, not a foot away. The bird,
with extended, tremulous wings, and low, distressed
cry, had its head bent forward, and was gazing into
the red, open mouth and glistening eyes of its en-
snarer and would-be destroyer. I got down from my
horse, and with a large stick killed the serpent and
rescued the almost exhausted songster of the woods ;
but the scene actually produced a kind of heart nausea,
and I never forgot the impression.

The lesson is not to let the eye get on the world,
lest the eyes of the world get fixed on you, with its
basilisk, destructive gaze, and there would be no de-
liverance.

The second look directed upon Sodom was by
the Lord.

I know of no scene in the Bible that is more im-
pressive than this, in which we see the Almighty stand-

THE FOUR LOOKS TOWARD SODOM. IOI

ing on the brow of the mountains which skirt the val-
ley of Siddim, and looking silently and fixedly upon
Sodom as it lay in its wealth, beauty, wickedness, and
utter corruption in the center of the plain.

As the people sinned on that day, how little they
dreamed it was their last, and that God in human
form was standing on a mountain ten miles away,
looking down upon them! It was a look of sorrow,
condemnation, and judgment. What thoughts must
have rolled through the Divine mind at this hour!
He had given the people a beautiful land, and every
material blessing, and time in which to save them-
selves and honor God, and yet they had misused every-
thing, perverted his gifts, despised his grace, broken
his laws, rejected his warnings, ill-treated his servants
and messengers, and put themselves finally beyond
the pale of mercy.

It is a fearful thought that a person may live such a
life as to bring upon him or her the silent and fixed
look of God. The dreadfulness of the thought is, that
such a gaze means that judgment is close by.

The third look thrown upon Sodom was by Lot's
wife.

She had been mercifully drawn by angel hands
out of the doomed city, and was in a place of safety.
The command given to her was not to look back,
which is the command to the pardoned and regener-

102 HEART TALKS.

ated soul until to-day. The woman disobeyed, and,
turning, fixed her eyes upon the burning city. The
awful picture had scarcely been made upon the retina
of the eye, when she was as instantly destroyed and
turned to a pillar of salt.

The disposition to look back on the world we
have left, and the sinful life we have forsaken, is one
of the strange facts we have to encounter in the spir-
itual life. The hymn-book recognizes it in the words,
"Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it ; prone to leave the
God I love." We are called to deal with it as a prin-
ciple in the moral life, and know it to exist in spite
of the teachings of modern theology. It is the expla-
nation of many strange things we see in the Church,
and accounts for the cases of spiritual petrifaction
we find in the pulpit and pew.

One would think that a regenerated heart would
gladly push on to mountains of a higher grace and
deliverance, even as the angel told Lot and his fam-
ily, "Stay not in all the plain; escape for thy life to
the mountains." What is there in the old life to
tempt us again? What is there in Sodom to draw us
back?

And yet, in spite of Zindendorf and all his follow-
ers ; in spite of an army of smaller writers, there is this
disposition in the regenerated soul to look back, and,
worse still, the inclination becomes an act. As a con-

THE FOUR LOOKS TOWARD SODOM. 103

sequence the ghastly miracle of people being turned
to stone is still going on. We see it in faces and lives.
Men and women once sweeping across the plains of
salvation are now stationary, and become like ada-
mant. The people not only see it, but they themselves
feel it. Faces of stone in the pew, faces of stone in
the official board, and faces of stone in the pulpit!
We can not always tell when the backward look was
turned, and what special thing or object occasioned
it; but we all can see the life suddenly arrested, and
the face of stone looking from the stationary life
upon us.

The fourth look on Sodom was cast by Abraham.

He stood on the mountains next day, and saw the
destruction which God had sent on the cities of the
plain. The Bible says that the Lord rained fire upon
them from out of heaven, and the smoke went up as
the smoke of a great furnace. The spectacle must
have been horrifying beyond all words to describe.
To see a country which the day before was all beauti-
ful and prosperous, with bustling cities, and teeming
with multitudes of people, suddenly ingulfed in fire,
and literally swept with cyclones of flame and smoke,
and, underneath it all, to catch glimpses of what was
transpiring, was truly a scene of horror, and well cal-
culated to fix the gaze of not only one man, but
every eye that could endure the sight.

104 HEART TALKS.

This look was not mentioned without a purpose.
It is not less certain that one part of the human fam-
ily will, from the heights of eternity, behold the over-
throw and witness the destruction of this world. They
will see the flames licking up cities, forests, and rivers
alike, and leaping from the mountain-tops like wild
animals. They will see whirlwinds of fire sweeping
about like cyclones on the plains, vast pillars of smoke
now appearing like waterspouts, and now seen falling
here and there like great pillars under the touch of a
Samson hand. Complete and overwhelming will be
the ruin of terrestrial things on that day.

There was no joy in Abraham's look that morning
of disaster to Sodom, and there will be nothing of the
kind in the heart of God's people on the dreadful Day
of Judgment. But there will be no dissent to, or dis-
approval of, the divine proceedings in that fearful
hour. It will all come to the silent witnesses in that
time, that it was in vain God loaded the people down
with material bounties; in vain for them harvests
waved, flowers and fruits abounded, flocks and herds
multipled, cities prospered and Plenty waved her wand
over the broad earth. It was in vain God gave his
Son, sent his Spirit, and filled the earth with churches,
bibles, and preachers. It was in vain he bore with
them, and warned and promised and pleaded ten thou-
sand times. They would not have him to reign over

THE FOUR LOOKS TOWARD SODOM. 105

them. They mocked at message and messenger.
They broke every commandment, grieved the Holy
Ghost, and trampled the blood of Christ under their
feet as an unholy thing. They laid up wrath against
the Day of Wrath. They made themselves ripe for
destruction. And it has come at last. This is the end
long foretold by prophet and affirmed by God. Time
is ended. The earth is being burned up ; the heavens
are passing away; the nations who forgot God, and
still can not pray, are calling for the mountains to fall
upon them; and from the great cliffs of the eternal
world, the Redeemed stand and view the dreadful
scene. The typical look of Abraham is fulfilled at last.

XI.

THE STRENGTH OF SAMSON.

A 5 far as it is possible for a doctrine or great spir-
itual truth to be illustrated in a man, God has
striven to show heavenly facts in vessels of clay.

Notably is this seen in the case of Samson. The
marvelous strength given the man, and his use of the
same, was intended to teach something; and if that
teaching is not holiness and some of its striking fea-
tures, then the wonderful life of the man is still an un-
solved problem.

Accepting the thought that holiness is thus typi-
fied and taught, and at once Samson's life becomes
luminous and full of profound instruction as well as
warning to us. The reader is called upon to observe
several facts.

First, the man was a Nazarite.

The Nazarites were the typical holy people. They
were under peculiar vows to God, and lived a life of
self-denial and sacrifice. They drank no wine, ate no
grapes, and were not allowed to cut their hair.

A sanctified man is the Nazarite of to-day. He
is under peculiar vows, and is expected to be different

from his regenerated brethren. Things which are

106

THE STRENGTH OF SAMSON. 107

lawful in themselves and may be practiced or enjoyed
by others, are not allowed to him. There are books
he can not read, and songs he can not sing, and pleas-
ures and pursuits from which he is precluded by God
and man. The unshorn hair and refraining from
grapes and wine stand for principles of life and con-
duct, which will make a peculiar and holy people.
The Nazarite in early days, and now, was highly ex-
alted; great was to be his honor; but not less true is
the fact that he had to walk a very narrow and lonely
path. It costs to be a Nazarite.

Another fact about Samson's life was that his
strength was the gift of God.

So is holiness the direct work of the Lord upon
the soul. He imparts it. It can come in no other way.

An additional fact was that the marvelous strength
of the man was a secret.

The fact of the general ignorance as to where his
power lay is seen in the credulity and blunders of
Delilah. No one connected it with his hair. When
Samson told his betrayer that if seven green withes
were used to bind him, he would be helpless, she be-
lieved him. So in regard to the pinning of his head
to the wall. The woman who knew him best did not
dream where his mighty power lay.

All this is significant. It means that the unc-
tion and influence of the sanctified man is a mys-

108 HEART TALKS.

tery to all who have it not. They see the effects, but
do not know how to account for it. Often they say
it is personal magnetism, eloquence, a pleasing man-
ner, and many other like things. The real secret is
hidden from them. The white stone with the new
name is only known by those who have received it.

A fourth fact connected with the history is, that
it was not necessary for Samson to be a physical giant
to possess his strength.

We doubt not that he was a man of ordinary size,
and very likely below the average stature of men.
This fact alone would actually add to the wonder of
this human miracle, and so to the glory of God.

We recall once hearing a magnificent female voice
in a large church. It was so deep, rich, and powerful,
that we turned to look at the singer, and saw a frail-
looking little woman that a mere touch or jostle
seemed able to push into the grave ; and yet from the
delicate creature came pouring forth the full rich
sounds that were thrilling and moving everybody.

Doubtless, the physical frame of Samson seemed
utterly inadequate to do the deeds which he per-
formed. It must have perfectly astonished the people
to see him rip great massive gates from the city wall,
and carry them with ease miles away; or to see him
destroy a lion or achieve any one of the remarkable
exploits for which he was famous. The things done

THE STRENGTH OF SAMSON. IOQ

were so disproportionate to his size, they so towered
above him according to the natural eye, that the
miracle was declared in the performance, and God was
seen and glorified.

We have beheld the blessing of sanctification come
upon and shine forth from apparently very unpromis-
ing subjects. Not to speak of men who were pigmies
in body but giants in spiritual power, we have also
been made to wonder at the marvelous divine endue-
ment abiding in individuals who were rough in ap-
pearance, unattractive in person, unpolished in speech,
and without education or culture whatever. They
were not even remarkable for gifts, and so were not
giants of any kind. They were plain, unpretending
men and women, and this very fact brought out the
power and glory of God all the more. The extraor-
dinary was seen plainly against a background of the
ordinary.

A fifth fact relative to the strength of Samson was
that it would arise in him in mightiest force at certain
times.

While he always had the secret of strength, yet
there were occasions when this power would fairly
boil in him, and rush forth like the sweep of an irre-
sistible tempest. Once this happened at the sight of
a lion; again as he looked at the gates of Gaza; and
still again on viewing a multitude of Philistines. Ac-

110 HEART TALKS.

cording to the Scripture, the Spirit would come upon
him, and with his blood rushing through his veins, his
muscles swelling like great ropes, and a shout of tri-
umph ringing from his lips, Samson would hurl
himself upon the enemy, and there would be a mar-
velous victory.

All this is perfectly familiar to the sanctified man ;
that strange coming upon him of the Spirit, and the
feeling that he can not only leap over a wall, but run
through a troop, strangle lions, tear up gates of brass,
and scatter a host of the king's enemies anywhere,
everywhere, and every time.

It seemed, when the Divine energy would surge
through Samson, that he had to throttle, tear up or
knock down something. This same peculiar force
swells in the soul of the sanctified, and brings with
it a sense of physical power that is felt all over the
body. If sin was in a material form before the man of
God at such a time, it would have to go down. The
hands reach out instinctively to shatter and destroy
the works of the devil.

So when once the writer beheld a preacher shaking
with the power of God upon him, cast something afar
with his hand, and with a quick sweep of the foot hurl
some wooden object from the platform, we knew how
he felt, and what he meant, and what was in him. We
knew that an overplus of spiritual force was working

THE STRENGTH OF SAMSON. Ill

out in a physical way, and that he had thus to relieve
himself, even as Samson, heaven filled and fired, felt
compelled to tear up heavy gates, pack them for miles,
and pitch them on the top of a hill.

Many times the writer has felt this strange in-
fluence as he stood in the pulpit. It would fill the soul
and fairly tingle to the ends of the body. It was an
intoxication that did not interfere with, but brought
clearheadedness. A thrilling joyous sense of power
throbbed through the entire being, and the hands
fairly itched to upheave gates, choke lions, pull down
walls, and beat a triumphant way through every kind
of difficulty and opposition.

We do not doubt that when the Spirit of the Lord
would come upon Samson, he would shout, and under
his tremendous onset nothing could stand before him.
In like manner we have seen the holy power filling
and overflowing some servant of God. While the
blessing is always a resident latent strength, yet at
the sight of a spiritual foe, a work to be done, a battle
to fight, and a victory to win, this wondrous spiritual
force will be felt coming down on brain, heart, and
body, as well as springing up from the very depths
of the soul, and the man will stand before us filled,
glowing, and fairly transfigured.

It is noticeable by every one that if the possessor
of the blessing is true to God, the Lord will never

112 HEART TALKS.

leave him in the presence of his enemies without this
divine girding and anointing. Sometimes the man
will have gone through the preparatory services and is
ready to rise with his text before a great audience,
when suddenly he feels the sweet sense of power com-
ing upon him. As he opens his lips and speaks, the
volume increases, and in a little while a Samson of
New Testament times, with his mysterious strength
and perfect ability to meet the demand of the hour,
is before us, and sweeping all things before him.

The writer has seen the power rising up and filling
a man in the pulpit until all felt the strange, inscrutable
presence of God in the speaker, and realized that a
giant stood before us. And, moreover, he was a
giant, had the strength of a giant, and did the work
of a giant in the swaying at his will of a multitude of
people. Samson was living again and at his old-time
work.

We have seen this power fall upon a preacher when
he was concluding a sermon. He had made his points,
convinced the understanding of the people before him,
had shown the vileness and helplessness of man, and
declared the almighty ability of Christ to save and
save to the uttermost. At this juncture we have seen
the Spirit of the Lord descend upon the speaker, and
then such a holy, rapturous, triumphant, ringing laugh
would peal from his lips, that no words could describe

THE STRENGTH OF SAMSON. 113

the panic and consternation among sinners and back-
sliders. Such as had strength to move at all would
rush to the altar and fall down, while others would
be stricken into a silence that was both remarkable
and awful. The God of Samson had come ! Samson
himself was again before us, his form actually appear-
ing to tower above us, his voice echoing from church-
walls as from mountain-sides, and the altar-floor seem-
ing like another plain of Philistia covered with dead
and wounded Philistines.

A sixth fact about Samson was that, when the
power was upon him, any weapon he could lay his
hand upon, was sufficient to win the victory.

For instance, at the time when he met the lion
in the way, and the animal "roared against him," the
Scripture says, "the Spirit of the Lord came mightily
upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a
kid." But the same passage tells us that when he did
this, "he had nothing in his hand."

At another time, a multitude of his enemies were
arrayed before him. The crowd "shouted against
him," but the Bible says, "The Spirit of the Lord
came mightily upon him," and then adds that Sam-
son found a bone lying on the ground, and, rushing
into the combat with this simple weapon, he slew
with it one thousand men.

It is to be noticed that the Spirit was upon him

8

114 HEART TALKS.

when he did so much with those empty hands on one
occasion and with a mere bone on the other.

All this is profoundly significant, and means that
a man, with the blessing in him and filling him to
overflowing, at the call of duty and trumpet-blast of
battle can win victory with the simplest of means and
instrumentalities.

We all know what it is to see great union-meetings
of the Churches, with combined choirs, platform nota-
bles, resetted ushers, artistic solos, eloquent prayers,
and great discourses on the oratorical, logical, and
theological order, and yet nothing accomplished.
The chariots of Assyria had been hired, and the horses
of Egypt secured, but victory did not come. Some-
thing seemed to be lacking. The Spirit of God had
not and did not fall upon the services and the people.

Again, we all have seen the tremendous pulpit
effort, and a series of tremendous efforts, utterly fail
to do what was longed for and expected. The man
was scholarly, polished, refined, and a Christian at
that. His logic was unanswerable, and his manner
beyond criticism. He was an elegant Christian
gentleman, preaching the truth; but somehow God
did not answer by fire. There was a perfect magazine
of spiritual weapons, parks of pulpit artillery, some
sky-rockets for signal service, cavalry charges of
propositions, and admirable manipulation of the con-

THE STRENGTH OF SAMSON. 115

gregation, but nothing was done. There was no
"power." The results of the meeting were more like
that of a dress parade and review than an actual battle.

Over against all this let a man have the blessing
we are writing about, and the fruit of his life and the
result of his labors will at once begin to excite the
talk and astonishment of the community and country
at large. It will be observed that while he employs
the usual methods and agencies of grace, yet he does
not lean on them or look to them, but to something
or somebody above and beyond. The "power" seems
to come down in a way independent of people, circum-
stances, and everything. No matter what he says
and what he does, a heavenly influence is at once felt
in convicting, softening, quickening, comforting, and
saving power. There seems to be a double response
to what he utters, one from heaven and the other from
the hearts of men. He is clothed with holy energy,
and God owns, acknowledges, and honors his servant
in ways most unmistakable from the skies.

It matters not whether he is empty-handed or full-
handed, whether he gives a complete sermon or a
simple talk, — the strong man of God is always before
us, and never having a defeat. There are times when
he may seem to have nothing in his hands, or he may
have picked up a mere bone, and yet he, being filled
with the Holy Ghost, sweeps everything before him.

Il6 HEART TALKS.

The beautiful solo, sung with artistic grace and
studied effect, has left every heart unmoved and every
eye dry as stone, when under a single stanza or
two of an old hymn, the man we speak of has every
face bathed with tears. The eloquent prayer got no-
where, and the studied discourse was lost in thin air;
but Samson, the real spiritual Samson, with whom
God wants to fill the Church to-day, being present
and called on to conclude, put his consecrated arms
around the pillars of God's promises, and in a few
broken, burning utterances of the soul, and with a
mighty upheaving, pulling-down grasp of faith, fairly
brought the heavens down, and he, Samson, and the
people alike, were all covered up with shouts, cries,
laughter, weeping, clapping of hands, and sweeping
clouds of glory.

"Our fathers had this power,
And we may have it too!
'Tis the power, the power!
Tis the very same power!
T is the power, the power !
Tis the power which Jesus
Promised should come down."

XII.
THE DEFEAT AT AI.

'T'HE reader will remember that, after the children
•* of Israel had crossed the Jordan into Canaan, and
after the great victory at Jericho, there came a most
mortifying defeat to them at a place called Ai. The
aggravating features of the humiliation were the small
size of the town assailed and the smaller number of
the enemy's forces, compared to the Israelites. Well
might the people be astounded.

The explanation of the reverse was, there had
been transgression in the camp. God was grieved,
and would not go out with his people to battle. As
a result their power was gone, and they not only could
do nothing with their foes, but could not even stand
before them.

We read that Joshua rent his clothes and fell upon
his face, while the elders of Israel put dust on their
heads. It was after that, God told them there was
an accursed thing in the camp. The search was made,
and under the tent of Achan was found the wedge of
gold and Babylonish garment which had been
secreted there by the disobedient Israelite. The rest
of the history is well known as to the stoning of

"7

Il8 HEART TALKS.

Achan, the destruction of the hidden things, and the
burning up of all the man's property.

Once more power and victory returned to the
children of Israel; God went out with their armies,
and the nations melted at their very presence.

The occurrence makes a melancholy narrative, but
it is something that has transpired many times since
in the lives of Christians and in the history of
Churches.

It is not uncommon to see a Church, after a career
of usefulness and power, go into a condition of moral
apathy and deadness. It is even more common to
behold men, once clothed with heavenly zeal and
mighty with the unction of God, gradually cool off,
lose their spiritual force, and become weak like other
men. They have had Jerichos to fall before them,
but now, under some strange change, they can not
take Ai. Indeed, they retire from before Ai. They
recognize the loss in themselves, and others observe
it as well. Something has happened. Something is
the matter.

Time would fail to tell of preachers and laymen
who ran well for a season, and then gradually or sud-
denly their triumphant career was ended. There have
been a number of evangelists who fairly blazed for
a while, and then their light began to wane and

THE DEFEAT AT AT. 1 19

finally, in some instances, went out entirely. Among
the names were some prominent ones. They had the
ear of the people, drew multitudes, pulled down fire
from heaven, and yet after all this went into eclipse
and darkness.

In some cases there can be a proper explanation
like unto that of John the Baptist, who saw himself
decrease and Christ increase. The man's work may
be ended, his mission accomplished, and so he passes
away.

In other instances the explanation is not so easy.
The demand for workers is great, the laborers are few,
the people need instruction and salvation, and the
sheep are scattered; why should men once so useful,
become useless, and who shone as stars of the first
magnitude retrograde to the glimmering of the fourth
and fifth rank, and at last go out altogether? Surely
the Holy Ghost did not exhaust Himself on them in
their first year. Surely usefulness should increase with
growing wisdom and experience and from long and
deep communion with God. Certainly some kind of
explanation is in order.

It is curious to hear the man himself talk. He
tells of great battles in the past, great victories over
every kind of forbidding circumstance. It is while
lying in the fields besieging little Ai, he describes how

I2O HEART TALKS.

he captured Jericho on the fourth or fifth day, his
auditors meanwhile wondering why he can not take
the small place now before him.

His explanations of present inability and failure
are voluminous, some of them pathetic, others elo-
quent. He says that his natural force is abating. But
it is noticed that he eats as much as ever, and perhaps
more. He speaks of nervous prostration a great deal :
time was, he had more to say about bodily prostration
on the floor in prayer. It is sad to hear him talking so
much about what "the doctors say about his case."
Meantime the people are also discussing his case ; but
it is another one than that which the physicians
are thinking about. One is looking at the physical
and the other at the spiritual side of the man. From
what he says about the great power he once possessed
before he broke down physically, one would suppose
that spiritual force could not abide in or proceed from
a frail and delicate body; that religious influence de-
pended more on health than grace, and on the state of
the nerves rather than on the condition of the soul.

Without depreciating the advantages of health and
strength in the work of God, yet, as an offset to this
idea, we would call attention to Summerfield, Payson,
and a number of others, who scarcely ever knew an
hour of physical ease, who would in preaching be in-
terrupted by hemorrhages, and swoon in the pulpit

THE DEFEAT AT AI. 121

after an hour's faithful labor, and yet their power with
God and man was marvelous.

Let it be understood that we are not referring to
defeats before places which would not surrender if an
angel fresh from heaven would come and offer them
the gospel. The Bible speaks very plainly about in-
dividuals and places that are given over to idols and
to believe a lie. Christ himself came to towns where
He could do no mighty works, and Paul came to
Athens, and had to leave it as he found it, in its silly
mirth and with its multitudinous false gods. To this
day there are Jerusalems that have to be wept over
as not knowing the time of their visitation, and towns
whose very dust, Christ says, shake off from youi
feet

We allude not to defeats before such communities,
but to the departure of spiritual power from individ-
uals who once possessed it abundantly, and to need-
less reverses before Ai, when the place should and can
be taken by men and women filled with the Holy
Ghost. The town has not been given over to hard-
ness, and yet it is not taken for God. What is the
matter? There is an explanation. What is it?

Just as in the instance of Israel, something wrong
had been done, and the wedge of gold and Babylonish
garment were buried under a tent in the midst of
the camp — so there has been a moral misstep, a trans-

122 HEART TALKS.

gression of the Divine law, and the fact is hidden in
the life, is unconfessed, and perhaps imrenounced.

The result is that God will not go up to the battle
with the man. The sermon is preached, the prayer
uttered, the testimony and exhortation given, con-
siderable intellectual ability displayed, an appearance
of something being done is created; and yet devout
hearts feel that something is lacking, and victory,
clear, glorious, unmistakable victory, does not come.
An accursed thing is in the camp; the offender has
his tent pitched over it, and the face which looks out
of the tent is one of darkness and profound melan-
choly.

But this is not the explanation of all cases of de-
feat, nor indeed of the great majority of instances of
failure. The blessed power of prevailing with man
and obtaining gracious victories in the work of God
can be lost in ways far less gross and criminal. It
can go through actions which are not the breaking of
the letter of the Ten Commandments.

Loose thinking can do the deed.

Careless speech can sap the holy power.

Lack of prayer will affect the divine glow and
glory.

Still more remarkable: an undue attention given
to things that are lawful and proper in themselves

THE DEFEAT AT AI.

will, in time, leave us weak in the presence of friends
and foes.

He who possesses the wonderful blessing which
Christ promised the disciples, is called upon to walk
in a very narrow way. There are many things
which others can do that he can not. He is a Nazarite.
There are pursuits which are perfectly honorable, but
he can not walk in them. There are books which
are untainted, and yet he can not read them. There
are songs that are clean, but he can not sing them
without hurt to his soul. He may be in the possession
of gifts which, if used, might lead him to prominence
and wealth. Other men, good and true, tread these
paths and are succeeding with gifts not superior to
his own ; but he is called by the Master to a close walk
and a peculiar work. He can not do as others
may do.

So, if betrayed by his gifts into these walks and
pursuits, he after a while discovers in some important
hour that the old-time force has gone. He can not
take Ai. It is while he feels his inability to take Ai
that he tells how he once captured Jericho. This,
of course, is intended as an apology for the present
failure, and also helps to while away the time.

The things mentioned may seem too little and in-
significant to some to cause such a disaster; but they

124 HEART TALKS.

are not little. A spider-web once took so much elec-
tricity from a telegraph wire and buried it in the
ground that a message could not be sent from one
town to another. The stock company and the public
were as much troubled and annoyed about it as if the
little white threads were chains of iron. The connec-
tion was broken and the power shut off.

There is nothing wrong in the bicycle as used for
exercise, health, and business, but the writer knew a
holiness preacher who allowed his wheel to so mo-
nopolize his thoughts and conversation, and consume
so much time in oiling and repairing, that he lost
his power and found himself helpless before Ai.

We knew another to devote so much of the day
to telegraphy, that should have been spent in commu-
nion with God and in soul-work, that the bubbling
joy went out of his heart, the shine from his face, and
in sermon and prayer you could see that he could not
capture Ai.

The writer once had with him for a week or so,
while in his active work, a large, sweet-toned music-
box. It was only a few days when, through the pa-
thetic sentimental pieces, he felt that a spider-web was
getting on his wire. Of course, the box went, for
he was anxious to get some messages through to the
throne about Ai, which at the same time was holding
out most remarkably.

THE DEFEAT AT AT. 125

Recently we met a young man who Has lost his
spiritual joy and power by over-devotion to a musical
accomplishment.

A kodak is a pleasant article to possess, and is
Qapable of giving much genuine and innocent pleas-
ure ; but if a man, filled with the Holy Ghost and called
to a special work, begins to use one too much, he will
soon commence wondering where the dew is that was
once on the fleece, and what can be the matter with
the walls of Ai, which will not go down under his ser-
mons and prayer-guns.

Politics, election returns, Associated Press dis-
patches, questions of reform, and many other matters
can and will, if we are not careful, become switch-lines
to take the Divine electricity out of our souls.

Abundance of talk on any ephemeral, non-essen-
tial, and temporal question will be a spider-web to the
line.

Bicycles, kodaks, telegraphy, music, literature, and
art are all good things. They are legitimate and
proper, but through them it is possible to lose the
old-time glory and power, and we be left everlasting
besiegers of Ai, when we should take it at once with
a charge and shout of victory.

If we are having continued reverses, meeting with
frequent defeats in our religious work and life, let us
look under the tent. Small things may be hidden

126 HEART TALKS.

there, and, according to the Bible, God notices small
things.

If anything is there to which, while lawful, we
give undue attention and devotion, let us correct mat-
ters and put them in proper relation.

If anything is there that is doubtful and question-
able, we had better dig it up at once and say good-bye
to it forever.

If there is a sin, may we not only dig it up, but
stone it to death in the valley of Achor. God will
then go up with us to the battle ; Ai will fall ; greater
cities still go down, and the inhabitants of the land
will tremble at our presence.

XIII.

THE SIFTER AND FAN.

HP HERE is a great difference between a sifter and
* fan. They do directly opposite things. The Bible
states that the former is used by the devil and the lat-
ter by Christ. There is never an interchange or ex-
change. The character of both forbid it, and the work
both are doing would not allow it.

The sifter, as we all will recollect as children, was
filled by the cook with meal and then treated to a
rapid handshaking. The result of this was that the
meal escaped, and only bran was left. This last
article, we recall, was thrown out of the kitchen-win-
dow on the ground for the chickens to peck at.

In like manner Satan takes a man or woman and
sifts them. The idea is to get all the good out of the
individual and leave only the bad; to shake out the
meal and leave the bran. It is a sickening sight
to see a man undergoing this manipulation of the
devil's sieve, and behold health, virtue, truth, honor,
purity, and every other good thing gradually depart-
ing, until at last nothing but the bran of a wasted life,
blighted reputation, and undone character is left. We

have seen people who had been so thoroughly sifted

127

128 HEART TALKS.

by Satan, so brought down to bran alone, that it looked
like nothing remained for the adversary to do but to
knock what was left out of the kitchen-window of hell
into the pit for devils to scratch and peck at.

The devil's sieve is a fearful thing. Christ said
that the great adversary endeavored to ruin Peter
that way. "Simon, Satan hath desired thee that he
might sift thee as wheat; but I have prayed for thee
that thy faith fail not." In the short time that the
enemy was allowed to handle Peter, he had some ter-
rible victories over him, and brought him to the brink
of ruin. There are others who do not escape as did
the apostle, but are finally and forever undone.

The winnowing fan which Christ is represented
as using does the direct opposite of the sifter. A pile
of wheat, mixed with chaff, is laid on the floor, and the
fan is turned upon it with its strong air current. The
result is that the chaff is blown away, and the golden,
solid wheat remains. The sifter got rid of the meal
and kept the bran; the fan gets rid of the chaff and
retains the wheat.

This is Christ's plan and blessed loving work on
the souls which belong to him. His omniscient eye
sees that in the wheat of devoted religious character
there can be downright chaff. And he sees this among
the sanctified as well as the regenerated.

We do not mean by chaff that actual or inbred sin

THE SIFTER AND FAN. 129

is left, but things that are not best or wise, things
that can be removed or improved. Habits, customs,
notions, mannerisms, odd ways in particular and gen-
eral, and certain performances taken up, practiced and
exacted of others, that are above the Word, beyond
the Word, and not in the Word.

It would require a much larger article than this
to mention and describe the various chaffy things that
can become mixed up in the wheat of the Christian
life, and that should come out, and that from many
honest, Christ-like souls is coming out.

One thing is certain, — that we can not pick this
chaff out of each other. It would be an endless job,
and one that would be resented anyhow. Meanwhile
we would be removing the trashy stuff from the life of
our brother, he would be doing the same office for us,
and there might be a misunderstanding. According
to the Bible, it takes Christ to do this work. He blows
it out with His winnowing fan. He wants all wheat
in His followers and not a particle of chaff. How we
ought to love Him for this, and bless God for the
steady divine breath that is to blow out of our lives
every unwise, foolish, and questionable thing. I repeat
that we can have a sanctified heart, and yet can be im-
proved in manners, habits, notions, and many other
particulars. Against these things Christ, who has
already, with His holy fire, burned up inbred sin, now

130 HEART TALKS.

directs the great winnowing fan of His grace, and
they go! Thank God, all of us have both seen and
felt some of them go !

I know a brother who was genuinely sanctified,
who tried to drive people by abuse into the blessing
of perfect love. The Lord turned His fan upon him,
and blew the cudgel out of his hands, and he now tries
to persuade men into the higher experience. We
all recognize among God's people a disposition to
exaggerate, especially in description of Church work
and revivals. Every meeting is described as a "tor-
nado," a "cyclone" or a "flood." The town is said
to be "moved as never before," to be "shaken from
center to circumference," and "turned upside down,"
etc., etc. The actual figures of conquest are not given.
Perhaps they would not exactly agree with the other
statements about cyclones and tornadoes. The feel-
ing left in the mind after such a letter is that the
whole work has been done, and nothing else is left
for any one else to do. The writer, in common with
many others, has erred on these lines, it being so easy
and natural to think, when our own hearts are on fire,
and a lot of holiness people are shouting around us,
that the whole country is surrendering to God.

A few months ago we read a letter in one of our
Church papers from a young preacher, in which he
stated that the whole southern part of the State was

THE SIFTER AND FAN. 13!

aroused about a certain Holiness College, and great
numbers of young men were coming, etc., etc. The
southern part of the State had a population of a mil-
lion, with a large number of towns. The young man
we speak of had been to two or three small commu-
nities, and yet wrote as he did. The college register
thus far has failed to record the arrival of the southern
part of that State.

Against all exaggerated language Christ directs
His winnowing fan with the words, "Let your con-
versation be yea, yea, nay, nay ; for whatsoever is more
than this cometh of evil."

Again, we know of several godly people who
have a way of breaking in upon another person who
has been called upon to pray in public, and of keeping
up such a verbal clamor that the one who was asked
to lead in prayer can not be heard at all. We once
held a meeting where not a single prayer was heard
for days on account of this strange interruption. As
for responses to prayer and ejaculations of praise and
joy coming from those around who are listening, we
all like and rejoice in. But this was a loud-voiced,
verbal drowning out of every prayer offered in the
church, except that of this honestly mistaken brother.

The winnowing fan needs to be turned on this
unwise habit, while the apostle writes, "Let all things
be done in order."

132 HEART TALKS.

Still again, I meet a religious body of people all
over the land that in prayer and exhortation have
adopted a whine. As a peculiar nasal utterance it
belongs to this denomination. I have never heard
any one else adopt it or try to make it their own.
Once heard, it can never be forgotten. The people
themselves are excellent, and have the solid wheat
of a good religious experience, but have mixed up with
it this chaff of human addition. God has given us
our natural voices, and why we should renounce
them, so to speak, in worship, and get to whining
the instant we come into His presence and com-
mence praying to Him, I utterly fail to see. The
winnowing fan is certainly needed here ; not to remove
inbred sin, for this has been burned out by the bap-
tism with the Holy Ghost and fire, but to blow away
a needless, senseless, and hurtful custom.

The writer knows a number of God's sanctified
children who have placed themselves before this fan
of Christ, and said, Take out of me and my life, O
Lord, everything that is not best and wise. I want to
be like you in all things.

It is certainly blessed to see the winnowing-
process going on, and to behold Ihese men and women
becoming more spiritually lovely and attractive all the
time, They get so loving, gentle, patient, discreet,
level-headed, restful, and Christ-like that we rejoice

THE SIFTER AND FAN. 133

to meet and be with them. We find ourselves wish-
ing that all of God's people were like them ; fierceness,
combativeness, argumentativeness, offensive pecu-
liarities and mannerisms, unscriptural notions and
practices all given up, the chaff gone, and the beau-
tiful, golden wheat of a modest, humble, faithful
Christian life and character left for hell to be amazed
at, earth to admire, and heaven to rejoice over.

May the good Lord turn His winnowing fan upon
us all ! If we are all wheat, we have nothing to dread
or lose. If we have chaff, it ought to go. We wonder
how many will say Amen.

XIV.
"THE BATTLE IS NOT YOURS."

'"PHIS was God's message to His people when the
* enemy, in overwhelming numbers, were arrayed
against them. It is a message that needs to be sent
and received to-day fully as much as upon that morn-
ing, when the forces encamped against Israel were
like grasshoppers for multitude.

The sentence of five words, which forms the cap-
tion of this article, is susceptible of two applications.
First, it may come in rebuke. There are some people
who act as if the whole Church rested upon their
shoulders. These characters are found both in the
ministry and laity. They go about with pondering
brows, anxious looks, and burdened spirits. The care
of the Church or Churches proves a crushing load to
them. To some they appear to be the door of the
Church, to others they seem to have the keys, and to
still others they look like they not only run the visible
kingdom of Christ, but actually bear it up. To the
young and uninitiated these personages, with their
burdened, even oppressed, appearance, are very awe-
inspiring.

The writer recalls a certain large building in one
134

THE BATTLE IS NOT YOURS. 135

of our great cities, which has near its foundation a
row of Satyr-like figures. They are bowed down as
if they were upholding the vast fabric above, when the
truth is, as the architect will tell you, they have only
the appearance of supporting, and really bear up
nothing. A number of times we have seen individuals
in the Church, who reminded us of these stone images.
They carry a burdened look, a strained expression of
countenance, as if they could not hold out much
longer. They bear themselves as if, through the neg-
lect and faithlessness of others, great and crushing
burdens had been laid upon them, when the truth was
that the financial and religious welfare of the Church
did not depend upon them at all. We have all seen
this character in the home, business-office, and many
other places ; but for richness of expression, complete-
ness of outline, as well as fullness of detail, we have
to go to the Church to behold the man. He may
be a presiding elder, pastor, steward, or Church mem-
ber, it does not matter; the facial expression born
of the imagination that a fearful responsibility is upon
him, and one out of all proportion greater than that
which rests upon the other members of the Church,
is unmistakably there. In addition can be read in the
mystic handwriting on the countenance the inward
belief that he is the only one of the Lord's prophets
now left in the land, and that if he should die — well,

136 HEART TALKS.

there is no language powerful enough to describe the
extent of the woe which would befall the Church at
the loss of such a servant, who, not content with be-
ing a pillar, actually bears up the pillars themselves!
In a word, he has unwittingly made himself the foun-
dation.

So they all have a "bearing-up" look. An awful
load, not only of personal but of general responsibility,
seems to be crushing them to the earth. They try
to cultivate a meek silence at times, but it will not
and does not last; they must speak and recount what
they have done, are doing, and are going to do; the
last being always the greatest of the three. In one
case I recall a steward who, on one of his monthly
laudations of what he had done and suffered for Zion,
ran out of facts concerning actual performances, and
said, "Brethren, I can't even sleep at night for think-
ing of these things." The "these things" to which he
referred was a debt of several hundred dollars on
a Church which never paid less than fifteen thousand
dollars a year for all purposes, and never had a deficit
to report at the Annual Conference. The brother
knew this, but he must have some grievance in order
to be able to give a reason for the grief which was in
him. The sadly amusing feature of it all was that he
was a well-to-do man, and could easily have paid the
bill, and not missed the money. But he wanted

THE BATTLE IS NOT YOURS. 137

to "grieve" instead of "give." Two small letters make
a great difference in words.

The grief-stricken appearance I have beheld in
some Church officials, and the sighs I have heard
them heave, would give them fame in the world of
drama, and command any price as "wailers" and
"mourners" for funerals in the far-away East.

Time was in my early ministry when I was much
impressed with this class of people, and thought every-
thing rested upon them, that nothing would or could
be more calamitous than the death of these same
nervous, wiry, jerky, fussy, busy, consequential indi-
viduals.

Little by little I began to see that the Church
did not rest upon them; that others, who were say-
ing but little, were really doing more, and much more,
than these same persons, and not only financially, but
in every other way, for the cause of Christ.

Then, I have seen one of these deluded beings die ;
and it was simply marvelous to note how well God's
cause got along without him; in fact, that an actual
sense of relief was realized. Only think of it! Not
a jar was felt through all the vast and complicated
machinery of the Church ; not a halt of a single mo-
ment upon the part of God's mighty advancing hosts.
Multiplied thousands were being saved while he was
dying. Hundreds of millions never heard of him, and,

138 HEART TALKS.

awful to state, among the few who knew him, no one
was inconsolable at his departure. And yet he imag-
ined that he was not only important, but essential.

The expression, "We can not get along without
him," even when uttered in connection with the best
and most useful of men, is not only untrue, but per-
fectly absurd.

The Orientals had a figurative way of conveying
truth, which was very powerful. One of their sym-
bolic sermons was to thrust a finger into water, and
then, upon withdrawing it, ask the looker-on to show
them the hole. The lesson was, that just that much
we would be missed on the earth ; that, the instant we
were withdrawn from the walks of life, men would
rush in instantly, and so fill our places ; we would never
be missed.

Let the reader ask himself what physician, lawyer,
merchant, or preacher has arrested by his death the
onward sweep of his profession or calling.

But the people of whom we speak will not be so
taught and convinced. They are settled in the idea
that they, like Atlas, bear up everything. So they
go on in their delusion, while their brethren also go
on, but smiling as they go, at this conceit, which, if
it were true, would wreck the Church with the death
of every such man.

THE BATTLE IS NOT YOURS. 139

But the expression, "The battle is not yours," is
also one of comfort.

If the battle is not ours, then it is the Lord's.
Here at once we get the consolation, and see the vic-
tory. If God's people would only allow this fact to
take possession of mind and heart, what an amount
of fret and anxiety they would be delivered from ! In
the great moral struggle going on around the world,
God is leading. It is His war. While He uses us,
it is His power, truth, and presence which is to win
the day at last.

All of God's children who have in them a proper
concern for the welfare and spread of His kingdom
in the world have several blessed facts for their con-
solation.

One is, that God took care of the Church quite a
while before they were born. He brought the truth
up out of the Dark Ages when the Devil seemed to
have the world in an everlasting grasp. If the Lord
did this when Bibles were scarce and faithful men few,
what reason for hope and joy have we now, with the
broad flashlight of the gospel flung in every direc-
tion, with countless copies of the Scriptures, and a
vast body of consecrated and sanctified men and
women altogether given up to the Lord!

Another fact is, that the gospel will continue to

140 HEART TALKS.

roll on its victorious way after we are dead. Elijah
has to go, but God is getting Elisha ready to take
his place. George Fox is called away, but John Wes-
ley takes up the same cry which died away on the
Quaker's whitening lips. The Methodist Church be-
gan to lose power, and the Salvation Army sprang
to the front dfter sinners. A cold, stiff ecclesiasticism
creeps like death toward the heart of the Church, and
God sweeps the holiness movement around the world.
So it goes. You need not be afraid to die, my brother ;
draw up your feet, turn your face to the wall, and be
gathered to your fathers. The Church will manage
to get along after you are gathered. The gospel-car,
loaded down with happy passengers, will be rushing
through the land, while you, poor, dear heart, will
be gasping for breath. The old ship of Zion will be
coming up the stream of Time, the banks resounding
with the shouts of the redeemed, while you are being
lowered in the grave.

If a dead Christian could look out of the glass
case of his coffin, or take a peep out of the grave on
Sunday morning after his burial, he would be sur-
prised to see how many had taken his place and were
rushing on with the banner of salvation.

It was a custom in Greece, when tidings of an
important nature were sent, for it to be borne by a
man with a flaming firebrand. As he sank exhausted,

THE BATTLE IS NOT YOURS. 141

another man caught it up ere it fell, and so on, until at
last the flambeau, with its figurative message, had
reached the point of destination. So runs and falls
the gospel messenger, and so others quickly take up
the good news, the tidings of great joy to all people,
and have borne it far away while the dying Christian
is breathing his last, surrounded by friends and family.

A third consolation is the thought that, as the
battle is the Lord's, he is bound to win.

Viewed in any light, there can be no question
about the matter. How can one who is omnipresent,
omniscient, and omnipotent, be overcome? If the
Lord was afraid of the issue, He could easily stop the
generation of the human family until we all died out ;
or he could remove the oxygen from the air, or send
a flood, or make the earth open, and swallow us up
out of sight, or with a blow of His almighty hand
shiver the earth to pieces, and let us fall forever
through the bottomless space which underlies the
universe.

But God sees fit not to defeat us by physical might,
but with moral and spiritual forces. It makes the
battle longer, but the victory not the less certain. So
wonderful. is His power that He overrules everything,
makes the wrath of man to praise Him, and declares
that all things shall work together for good to us if
we but love Him.

142 HEART TALKS.

More than all that, the very end of the war has
been foreseen and described by Heaven. It is over-
whelming victory for God and His people, and eternal
disaster and irrevocable defeat to Satan and his fol-
lowers. The very language of sinners in their fear
and despair at the Last Day has been given, when
they ask for mountains and rocks to fall on them, and
hide them from the face of Him who sits upon the
throne. A picture, taken of the closing scene, shows
the Devil with the false prophet in hell, with all the
nations that forget God; while Jesus reigns from sun
to sun, holiness is everywhere, and the New Jerusalem
is seen descending from the skies.

Surely, in view of all these things, the child of
God should be no pessimist, but look up, and be glad,
for God is with us, and the day of earth's redemption
draweth nigh. yr

XV.
THE TEST OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE.

A MORAL test is not necessarily a temptation.
•**• The Devil tempts, while God tests His people.
In those days, the Bible says, God did tempt Abraham.
The commentators tell us, the better reading is that
God tried or tested Abraham. The Scripture is clear
in the statement that God tempts no man. More-
over, our knowledge of Him precludes the idea.

But God can place us in certain circumstances and
situations, can pass us through various conditions of
life, which will reveal and declare who we are and
where we are in the spiritual life. These testings come
to all. They vary somewhat, yet are similar with
many. They appear with remarkable vividness in
Elijah's life, and as we study them, they seem reflec-
tions or pictures of our own.

In Elijah's case we notice the test of success.

The prophet had won a great victory on Mount
Carmel. The fire had fallen, he had been vindicated
and honored by God, the people were convinced, and
the prophets of Baal had been slain by hundreds.
Through all this amazing success he kept in his proper
place before God, was humble and true as ever, and

143

144 HEART TALKS.

went from this triumph to another on the brow of the
mountain, where he pleaded with the Lord, and re-
ceived rain for the parched country. He stood the
test of success.

Not all can stand it. Many have gone down under
lit, and many more will yet do so. Some Christians
lose their heads immediately upon a first clearly-
marked success. Others run well for a while, and then,
as victory after victory comes to them on different
lines of the Christian life, they begin to falter, totter,
and then topple from their high attainments and close
walk with God.

They went up the ladder of temporal promotion
too rapidly. The elevation was so sudden, and the
position so lofty, as to create dizziness. Frequent
success in the work of the Lord brought about public
praise, newspaper notices, various kinds of compli-
ments, which at last sapped the strength, stole away
the humility, and destroyed the power of one of God's
devoted servants.

The harm was not all done at once, but spiritual
people could see the damage being inflicted, and be-
held it with intense sorrow. The man, once so hum-
ble, developed spiritual pride before he was aware of
it. He can not endure contradiction. He finds it
difficult to pardon a criticism passed on himself or
work. He has a keen relish for praise; it is like in-

THE TEST OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 145

cense in his nostrils. He does not care to hear others
complimented ; it is wearisome to him. He wants the
censer swung before him mainly, if not altogether;
and if it is not done, he drops hints to bring about
the swinging of the sweet thing. Time was that news-
paper puffs and notices humbled him, but now he care-
fully cuts them out or sends marked copies of the
paper to individuals or to others papers, that the echo
of his greatness might dwell long in the land.

He is a spiritually fallen man. He has an idol in X"
his life, and it is himself. He is a self-worshipper. He *
says that it is not so, but it is evident to all that Christ
has really the second place in his life. He was once
great in his littleness, but is now little in his greatness.
The trouble is that he does not realize it. God knows
it, men see it, but he, the fallen one, is the last to rec-
ognize it. God, in His goodness, will yet show His
servant these melancholy things. The pillow of the
Satan-deceived and fame-deluded man will yet be wet
with bitter tears over the fact that he could not stand
success; that he was faithful enough in a humble
and obscure sphere, but lost his head completely when
elevation and promotion came.

Few men can stand success. All are willing to risk ^
it, and thousands who enter upon that condition get'
spiritually hurt, and, worse still, go into backsliding,
and some into gross sin.

10

146 HEART TALKS.

We recently heard some grave-eyed, serious-faced
men speaking of Hobson, the hero of the Merrimac.
They were deploring his late conduct and the re-
markable weakness he was exhibiting. One of them
said, "He could not stand success; the flattery of a
nation was too great for him." The silence which
followed the remark was eloquent as well as pathetic ;
all felt the words of the speaker were true.

We never hear a young preacher much praised,
but we tremble for him. No one can tell the harm
that has been done here by indiscreet Christian men
and women. It is true that the flattered, patted, and
petted man of God says that he needs all this kind
of word-incense and tongue-anointings ; but a glance
at the spiritual giants of the Bible — Joseph, Elijah,
Daniel, and Paul — shows that they had none of this
coddling and nursing, taffying and sugar-plumming.

Few can stand it. Few can be trusted on pin-
nacles. Few can wield the scepter of any kind of
power without making a bludgeon of it to others
and finally a tripping-stick for himself. Under the
strange, intoxicating influence of public notice, public
applause, and the dizziness of high position, — behold,
the simplicity and sincerity of Christ is lost. The
humble man grows haughty, the once lowly child of
God becomes domineering, and the meek, obscure

THE TEST OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 147

preacher in time evolves into a dreaded ecclesiastical
tyrant and autocrat.

A friend of the writer saw a man elected to the
highest position in the Church. He said that in twelve
hours the "swelling" of the man was painfully apparent
to his best friends.

Few can stand success and power. Some, thank
God, like Elijah, can do so ; may their tribe increase !
But many can not ; down they go. Look at them tot-
tering already! See them falling! Hear the crash!
My God, have mercy !

A second moral test is that of failure.

This is the opposite of the other. It is to see
the work of our hands fail, or apparently fail. It may
be a failure of a single effort, a series of efforts, or a
lifetime work.

In Elijah's case it was the apparent defeat of the
greatest purpose and effort of his life. He was look-
ing for a result that would honor God and bless the
people. His victory on Mount Carmel, his triumph
in prayer on the brow of the mountain overlooking
the sea, and the destruction of Baal's prophets, had
prepared him to expect the complete overthrow of
idolatry in Israel and the universally-accepted and
peaceably-restored worship of God. To his amaze-
ment this does not follow, but instead he gets a mes-

148 HEART TALKS.

sage from Queen Jezebel that she is determined to
have his life, and that speedily. The Scripture tells
us that when Elijah heard that, "He went for his life."
Then followed his dejection under the juniper-tree
and his low spirits in the cave on the mountain. In
his own words, — "he wanted to die." He who stood
the test of success and glorious victory went down
under the test of temporary reverse or apparent failure.

As a rule, a less number lose spiritual ground here
than through the test of success. Still many weaken
and go down at this point, so that the lesson is needed
to be taught and the warning-signal held up.

With failure comes the falling away of friends. It
is sad to say, and can be said without bitterness or
cynicism, that there is a class of admirers and follow-
ers who are simply fair-weather adherents. They can
go from Bethany to Jerusalem with an acclaiming
crowd with you, but fall away in the journey from the
Judgment Hall to Calvary. They are enraptured with
one's success, but when the tide of popularity or pros-
perity seems to turn, they also turn.

One does not have to live long to see this most
melancholy feature of human nature. If ever a man
needed comfort and sympathy, it is when adversity
comes, when a strange revolution of life's wheel pulls
him down in temporal things, and heavy hands of

THE TEST OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 149

power and influence are outstretched to keep him
down. Now is the time for the grasp of the hand, the
cheery smile, the warm word of love, the sympathetic
visit, or the reassuring letter. But not always do these
things come, and, worse still, from where they might
have been expected.

This forsaking, turning away, and cooling off
towards one in misfortune, has been seen even in the
home. Men in fine financial condition have had a
court and deference paid them by their families, which
they imagined to be the outcroppings of love and de-
votion; but when trouble came, and they could not
do as formerly, they discovered a failure in attention
and an absence of affection, which first surprised and
grieved, and then, as the cause flashed upon the mind,
shocked and hardened them.

Here comes in, then, the power of failure. It alters
our surroundings, seems to change people, shakes
one's confidence in those formerly trusted, and so
opens the heart wide to sorrow, despair, and a pro-
found spirit of skepticism as to many things and all
people.

An additional feature of failure is a certain lone-
liness attendant upon it. The successful man is sought
after, the failing man is let alone. Elijah had the
entire wilderness to himself after his rebuff and defeat

150 HEART TALKS.

at Jezreel. In like manner men are allowed to have
solitary hours, lonely days, and empty rooms after
failure comes.

Let a man fail in a speech or sermon, and he will
be struck with the fact, how few will hunt him up.
It is the man who carried everything before him, and
.who needs no human comfort, who is surrounded and
fairly covered up with congratulations.

Let a man lose his fortune, or his business position,
or fail in a great undertaking, or come short of what
was expected of him by his friends, and at once he
hears the sighing of the wilderness around him, and
knows that in heart and life he is alone.

This is a crucial hour, a most wonderful oppor-
tunity in the character-world, a battle-field for either
a great victory or equally stupendous defeat. What
shall it be? Will the man rise or sink? Will he push
on or stop? Will he rise superior to the test or go
down under it?

While it is the soul's glorious opportunity, it is
also Satan's hour. Here he has captured great num-
bers, as, lying under the juniper-tree, they said they
were no better than their fathers, that hope was in
vain, and they only craved for themselves the privi-
lege to die.

Happy the man who will stand the test, push

THE TEST OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 151

on through the desert, hold to his faith in God, and
keep the sweetness and cleanness of his soul in spite
of everything. He shall come into the "confirmed,"
"strengthened," "established," "settled" experience
which Paul writes about, and after that obtain the '
crown of glory that fadeth not away.

XVI.

THE TEST OF WANT AND RELIEF.

ALL the sides of a man's character are not touched
•**• by the tests of success and failure. There is a
mighty trying force in loneliness, and an equally
powerful one in being thrown constantly for days or
months or years with what is called the crowd or mul-
titude. Each peculiar condition will reveal some
weakness of the heart, and call for attention and up-
building at a place where feebleness was not suspected.

After a while may come the test of want.

This means not simply the loss of many comforts,
but positive need itself. This trial came to Elijah far
from infrequently. Driven by persecution to deserts
and caves, comforts, doubtless, he never knew, while
oftentimes a bare subsistence was his lot. And there
were times when his need was so great that it required
a miracle from heaven to keep him from starvation.

Elijah was the most faithful servant God had in
Judah or Israel, and yet there was no one who seemed
to have a harder time in what is called the temporali-
ties of life. At the time we now write of, he was dwell-
ing in a cave far away from towns and cities, and was

fed by ravens, and drank at the brook which flowed

152

THE TEST OF WANT AND RELIEF. 153

in front of the cavern. He seemed to have had but
two meals a day, and the fare was not sumptuous. Of
course, Satan was busy at this point, to call the proph-
et's attention to the comfortable, not to say luxurious,
living of the prophets of Baal, of the three hundred
whom Queen Jezebel had fed at her own table, while
he, God's servant, living the truth, and preaching the
truth, spent most of his life in exile, suffering, and
actual want.

One day he noticed that the brook which mur-
mured before his hiding-place, did not flow with as
great volume as on the preceding day. The follow-
ing day it had still diminished, and Elijah saw it stead-
ily lessen, its tinkle weaken, until it became a mere
thread of water, a trickle, and then finally a dry bed
of sand and rock.

There is not the slightest intimation in the Book
that the prophet's faith failed in this trying circum-
stance or that he became impatient or repining. That
the opportunity was golden for such a mental and
spiritual state, none can question. But the man of
God stood true to God and himself through it all.

Not all, however, can claim such a victory. It
is a bitter trial to be needy, even when we have
brought poverty on ourselves by indolence or a sinful,
spendthrift life. But there is a keener pang sometimes
in the thought that our stripping and need comes

154 HEART TALKS.

while walking in the ways of righteousness. The great
enemy is quick to call attention to the fact. The soul
is requested to note the prosperity of the wicked, that
they have all that heart can wish, and spread them-
selves like a green bay-tree, while the child of God
has the dust thrown upon him by their flying carriage-
wheels, and in many cases can not see twenty-four
hours ahead, so far as daily bread is concerned.

It constitutes an experience never to be forgotten
to see the brook of one's income steadily diminishing
and drying up, to hear the tinkle of temporal pros-
perity getting fainter with the flight of each day, —
more than that, to behold the gaunt form of Need
leaning against the door, looking in, and, later on,
walking in, and taking his place in the house as one
of the family, his presence after that being as con-
stantly realized as that of any member of the house-
hold.

Bishop Marvin tells of the profound impression
made upon him as a child, by his father and mother
looking together, one day, into their almost emptied
corn-crib, and talking gloomily about the future. He
said, their anxious faces and low voices rolled a burden
even on his boyish heart^ and made a solemn memory
that time had never been able to obliterate.

When a Christian, steady, straightforward, and
true, spends his life in an everlasting financial strain

THE TEST OF WANT AND RELIEF. 155

and pinch, and sees at the same time men of the world
with their comfortable homes and easy incomes, and
whose lives are not such as they should be, he is going
through a test.

When a preacher, with an inadequate salary, one
on which he finds it impossible to do justice to his
children in the way of education and preparation for
life, looks across the street, and sees a lawyer, whose
beautiful home and grounds declare not only comfort,
but luxury ; when he contrasts these happenings in his
mind with the added thought that he is doing far more
good in the world than the lawyer, the man is passing
through a test, and a severe one at that.

When an evangelist goes to a place, and labors
with all his mind, soul, and strength for the spiritual
good of the community, and sees scores of souls
saved and blessed under his ministry, and receives
far less for the ten days' work than some strolling
lecturer with a "funny subject" obtains in a single
night's address, there is a fine opportunity here for
repining, not to say discouragement. When this same
evangelist, after one month's hard gospel labor, had
scarcely an amount above traveling expenses given
him for compensation, and landed at his home on
Christmas eve with two dollars in his pocket, a very
great spiritual test was brought to bear upon such
qualities as patience, faith, and loyalty to a divine work.

156 HEART TALKS.

A letter, received from a devout young Christian
woman, contained such a portrayal of absolute want
in the large family of which she was a member, of
the brook having completely dried up, that the heart
literally ached as we read the lines.

Of course, these conditions throw the life open
to violent and persistent assaults of the Devil, the
temptations being in the direction of unbelief, bitter-
ness, worldly pursuits, compromise of principle and
character, and other lines too numerous to mention.

The child of God who can see the brook diminish,
and then disappear, whose bread comes by weight,
and day by day, and as by a miracle, and yet keep
sweet, patient, believing, and faithful in the Savior's
work all the time, has about graduated in one of the
highest schools in the spiritual life. He has swept up
out of the class of "The Thirty," and is one of the
famous "Three" spoken of in the Old Testament.

The opposite test of want is that of relief.

The idea we would present is, that the mode which
God often adopts to deliver the Christian in his trou-
bles is often as faith-trying as the condition of need
in which he was plunged.

This thought is brought out by considering the
manner in which God relieved his servant Elijah. It
was a time of famine in the land, and yet the Lord
did not send the prophet to a wealthy man to be taken

THE TEST OF WANT AND RELIEF. 157

care of, but to a poor widow, and she so poverty-
stricken that she had only a handful of meal left in
her barrel. Again Elijah rose victorious over the new
test, and, believing it was all right, told the woman
to make the cake of bread out of that last meal, and
doubt nothing. His mighty faith stimulated and in-
vigorated her sinking heart, and she did so. It was
a wonderful biscuit that she made that day. It proved
to be perfectly abundant for the needs of three people,
not only all that day, but as long as the famine lasted.
The reader can not but recall occasions of distress,
financial, spiritual, and other kinds, where relief came
in ways and methods that were utterly unexpected.
The time, manner, and instrument are scarcely ever
what the tried one looked for, and in that fact we be-
hold God even in the hour of deliverance quickening
and developing faith in the soul. Man in his wisdom
would not have conceived of succor in that way;
reason would not have planned it in such a fashion.
The deliverance of God, like all His other tests, is to
intensify and strengthen faith. God is pledged to re-
lieve his child, but the method and time is of Divine
selection, and with every repetition is bound to
strengthen the man's confidence in the love and faith-
fulness of the Almighty. Besides, the waiting itself
develops faith. Who would have dreamed that the
Lord would have commanded the poorest woman in

158 HEART TALKS.

the country to take care of His servant? But He did
so, and the method of relief was an overwhelming
argument and proof of God's ability to provide for
His people in the most discouraging circumstances,
and so an inspiration to faith and perfect soul-restful-
ness. How could a man doubt after such an unmis-
takably providential dealing?

A Christian woman, brought to sore straits, and
almost yielding to despair, had to be comforted, and
faith in God renewed. The agency the Lord used to
revive and restore His child was the sight of a sparrow
hopping about on the snow-covered ground. In-
stantly the words of Christ rushed over her, "Your
heavenly Father feedeth them — are ye not much bet-
ter than they?" The revulsion of feeling was com-
plete as, with ascendant faith in her heart, and happy
tears in her eyes, she murmured, "If He cares for
sparrows, how much more will He care for me !"

One of the most gifted preachers in the South,
Dr. C. K. Marshall, had suddenly lost two beautiful
children. He and his wife were prostrated under the
blow. In the very blackest day of their sorrow they
were, one morning, in their bedroom, too stunned
and heartsick to take up the simplest duty. How,
now, shall they be helped? Who is qualified to talk
to and help this prince of pulpit orators, who knew
beforehand all that any one could say to him?

THE TEST OF WANT AND RELIEF. 159

The strangeness of God's methods of relief is again
seen in the way He remembered His gifted servant.
Prominent, learned, and cultivated people had come
and gone, with their conversations, prayers, expres-
sions of sympathy, and counsel. All had failed. One
day God sent a poor old colored washerwoman, who,
standing at the foot of the bed, and looking down
with streaming eyes and kindling face upon the pros-
trate man and his wife by his side, so held up the duty
of submission to God, the certainty of reunion in
heaven, and, above all, the fact of an ever-presentf
loving, sympathetic Christ, that the fountains of the
deep were broken up in the souls of the two she ad-
dressed, the stony feeling was swept away, a tide of
sweetest spiritual consolation rilled their hearts, and
life, with its burdens and duties, was taken up from
that hour with a comfort and power never before
realized. The instrument of relief was a negro woman,
poor, unlettered, and unknown to the world, but well
known to God and filled with the Holy Ghost.

We heard a gentleman say in Alabama, a couple
of years ago, that he became convicted for his sins at a
meeting, and there came a night when he was so bur-
dened that he thought he would go wild with grief and
despair. The services were over, the meeting had
ended, all in the household were asleep, and he tossed,
wakeful and miserable, upon his bed. By his side,

160 HEART TALKS.

sound asleep, was a tobacco-chewing, backslidden
preacher. There was no need of waking him up, for
he himself was spiritually lapsed and dead. While
thus situated, who but God could give relief? It was
a summer night, the windows were open, and the katy-
dids were singing by scores in the trees. Suddenly
God made the choral chirp or song sound exactly like
"Come to Jesus," "Come to Jesus." With a burst of
tears the man cried out, "I will," fell upon his knees
by the bedside, and was instantly saved.

In the first year of his ministry, the writer, like
many other preachers, had a very hard time financially.
He saw the brook get smaller every day, and finally,
after living on bread alone for several days, saw even
that give out. The weather, also, was bitter cold, and
his coal supply was exhausted. As the town in which
he lived was not on his circuit, there was no one to
look to or call on. He had well-to-do men on his
work, but they, in the rush of their own life and busi-
ness, had overlooked him. What would God do in
this case?

At four o'clock in the afternoon the young
preacher, with a perfectly empty storeroom in his
house, knelt down before his stove, and cast in the last
lump of coal he had. Without rising, he dropped his
face in his hands, and said, with tears in his voice as

THE TEST OF WANT AND RELIEF. l6l

well as eyes, "Lord, I will trust you," when suddenly
there was a knock at the front door of the cottage
home, and on the doorstep stood a poor farmer's boy.
He said, with a kind voice, but in a bashful way, to the
preacher :

"I have just sold the bale of cotton I made this
year, and have brought you four dollars. I have
heard you preach several times, and want to help
you."

Doubtless the young man wondered, as he turned
away, why the preacher's voice was so broken as he
thanked him, and why tears should fall over such a
small present. But it was not small in the sight of
God or of the man benefitted. Moreover, the preacher
saw back of the brown hand of the country-boy the
white hand of Christ. He was at His old work of
breaking bread. Then was the Scripture verified,
"And the word of the Lord came unto Elijah, say-
ing, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, and dwell there;
behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to
sustain thee."

May the Lord grant us to be as faithful under
the two tests of want and relief as was His servant
Elijah ! And for our additional strength and comfort
may we not forget that Christ was brought into want,
and had the Devil to whisper to Him in the wilder-

1 62 HEART TALKS.

ness, "Why can not these stones be turned into
bread?" He stood the test to the end, even forty days ;
and then came the relief. It was wonderful. The
Bible says that "Angels came and ministered unto
him." The same will be done to us if we abide in
Christ and remain faithful.

XVII.
THE WITHERED HAND.

HP HE hand is king among the members. It is
*• hardly possible to overrate its value to the body.
If the eyes fail, the hand becomes, through touch, a
second sight ; if the tongue is dumb, the hand, through
signs and gesticulation, furnishes not only words, but
a language itself. Oratory without the hand is almost
like a bird without wings, while the great body of
musical instruments, thus deprived, become nothing
but pieces of furniture.

But there are other offices of the hand, which,
when we apply to the spiritual life, will add a pain-
ful interest to the spectacle presented by the Gospel
in the words that, in the congregation listening to
Christ, there was a man whose hand was withered.
This meant much, when viewed alone in a physical
sense, but with a spiritual application, a far greater
trouble and calamity is prevented.

There are many withered hands in Christian con-
gregations and assemblies to-day. As the lame man
lay at the Beautiful Gate, and the palsied man was
stretched by the Pool of Bethesda, so these withered

ones are in the Church, under the wings of the cher-

163

1 64 HEART TALKS.

ubim, and in the immediate presence of the God of
grace, love, and power.

There are a thousand blessed and beautiful things
these people 'could do with their hands if they were
not withered. Some have never done anything;
others were once useful, but have ceased doing. The
sinner's hand and the backslider's hand are wonder-
fully alike in the fact that just now both are lifeless
and powerless. One was always so; the other was
healed for a season, for a while did great good, and
then something happened, known to God and them-
selves, and now, although still in the house of wor-
ship, they are present with a withered hand.

We once knew a lady whose right hand became
paralyzed. She carried it on a pillow. It was smooth
and plump, but had a dead white look that was corpse-
like. This useless, lifeless hand was literally loaded
with diamonds and emerald rings. We never looked
upon the helpless member, covered with sparkling
jewels, without a sense of pain, as well as disgust.
And it is with no pleasant sensation we look upon the
beautiful, well-kept, and even jeweled hands in the
Church, and think of the little good they are doing
for Christ in this world. Another dead thing is loaded
down with gems !

One office of the spiritual hand is, to give the
grasp of interest and love.

THE WITHERED HAND. 165

It would be impossible to estimate the good which
has been done by such a clasp. It is a means of grace
to both parties. Men and women can date the great
moral change of their lives to such a cordial grasp of
the hand. Such a pressure given the writer, when
he had turned his back on the world, was like a great
influx of strength to his soul. And yet this needed
work of the hand is lacking in so many places because
it is withered.

Another office of the hand is, to uplift the fallen.

There are many hands and weapons lifted to push
and knock people down who are treading the way of
life. And there are hands to keep them down. And
then, thank God, there are hands to lift men up. They
are few in comparison with the others, but they exist
for all that.

It is always counted a noble act for a man to pluck
one from the fire or the waves, or to deliver from any
great physical danger. Men commemorate such deeds
in marble, in medals, and in song, oration, and book.
The land resounds with the achievement in which a
hand went down, and a human life came up.

There are greater dangers than fire and flood;
and mightier perils than falling buildings and plung-
ing derailed trains; and greater despairs born in the
heart than that of feeling a vessel going down in mid-
ocean, or beholding the flames cutting off all hope

166 HEART TALKS.

of escape from a burning building. There are such
things as hopeless poverty, present crushing want,
profound moral mistakes, sins committed, character
wrecked, reputation gone, conscience on fire, and dev-
ils goading the heart to desperation. Where one sinks
in the sea, or is ingulfed in blazing houses, thousands
are going down here, and the sad thought is, that they
would not have gone down if there had not been so
many withered hands in the Church.

We knew a man who had a number of disasters
befall him. Finally, one morning, a greater trouble
than all, which had gone before, befell him in his busi-
ness. Stunned, heartsick, despairing, he took the
street-cars for home. On the cars he met a friend
and member of the Church, who noticed his sorrow,
but said nothing. He reached home, and almost
staggered into his wife's room, hungry for a look and
word and grasp of sympathy and love. The wife was
so absorbed in her young baby that she had scarcely
a glance for her wretched husband. He told her that
he was in great distress, and her cold reply was to
go in the next room, and lie down. A hand-clasp of
love and pity would have saved him even then, but it
did not come. He was married to a woman who had
a withered hand when it came to spiritual help. He,
with a groan, walked into the next room, and com-
mitted suicide.

THE WITHERED HAND. 167

Few active, devoted workers but have thrilling
histories to relate of timely help that, under God, they
were able to extend, and that prevented desperate
deeds, robbed hell of a victim, and added a new citizen
to the kingdom of God. Look on us, said Peter to the
lame man, and at the same time gave him his hand,
and Luke says, the afflicted one leaped to his feet.
Save us from a hand that is idly folded into its
fellow-palm, and coddled in its deathlikeness on a
pillow, and gemmed when it is doing nothing for
God or man worth a copper cent. Give us the
hand that can reach downward, and get hold of a
despairing heart and sinking life, and lift them up,
and present them to God. Such a hand Christ carried
with Him, and such a hand we should all pray to pos-
sess.

A third office of the hand is, to give.

The sight of a woman stopping on the street to
give to a beggar has always warmed my heart. The
spectacle of a liberal man giving his gold, silver, and
bank-notes to a worthy cause is always an uplifting
sight. The human race is united in condemnation and
disgust of a miser, and all agree in admiring and prais-
ing the generous and princely giver. No statue is built
for an avaricious man who hoarded and lived for him-
self; but the man whose heart-throbs broke the fasten-
ings of his front door, and the latch of his gate, and

1 68 HEART TALKS.

helped the outside world in its need and distress as
God gave him ability, — this is the man whose name
is pronounced with love and gratitude, and whose life
is honored everywhere. He has built monuments for
himself in churches, colleges, and good institutions
of various kinds. The tears which he dried by his
benefactions to the poor will reappear, transformed
into flashing gems, that will deck his crown at the
Last Day. The blessings he receives from countless
lips will be woven into a marvelous robe of glory
for him in the coming world.

Few know how to give. The hand is withered.
The man can not get his fingers into his pocket, and
has no strength to draw out his purse, or to extract
coins and bills from its folds. Poor, lifeless member
that can not respond to the call which comes up from
starving people in our alleys for bread and coal, and
from the jungles of India and Africa for gospel light
and salvation !

A fourth office of the hand is, to supplicate in
prayer to God, and bring down the power of Heaven
upon the people.

We naturally fold or clasp the hands when we pray,
and often they are uplifted in supplication. The more
earnest the petition becomes, the more the hand is
used. We have all seen such hands. There have
been times that we have beheld them over the heads

THE WITHERED HAND. 169

ot a congregation, when they reminded us of banners,
leading on to battle and victory. Some of them would
get hold of the throne, and would bring down the
Spirit upon the audience in mighty power. There
were no pillars and galleries lined and loaded with such
spiritual difficulty and opposition but they could, by
the might of those hands of prayer, bring the whole
thing down before God with a perfect crash.

How we bless God for these hands of prayer ! We
see them in many places, at the sick-bed, dying-bed,
family altar, Sunday-school, prayer-meeting, and
Church service. They are barricades between souls
and ruin, and they, at the same time, are great levers
to pry men and women out of sin and despair into
hope and righteousness.

It is said of Stonewall Jackson that he could be
seen, during the raging of the battle, with his head
bowed and right hand uplifted in prayer, as he gal-
loped up and down in front of firing and charging
lines. Who wonders at his victories? God would not
let anything override that lifted hand. And it has
seemed to the writer that, while God intended to
emancipate the slave in the Civil War, yet He had
to bury that man before He could let the invading
army roll on to accomplish the great design. God
honors the uplifted hand.

When a certain battle took place between the Is-

170 HEART TALKS.

raelites and one of their powerful enemies, the Bible
says that Moses went up on a mountain, and lifted his
hands in prayer. The Scripture adds that, when his
hands drooped, Amalek prevailed, but when they were
steady in their uplifted position, Israel prevailed. The
efficacy of fervent, importuning prayer is plainly
taught here in this striking occurrence.

In view of all -this, how exceedingly melancholy
it is to see the withered hands in the Church ! They
are busy in Church festivals, they can clap an elegant
approval of some song in a social reception, but they
hang pale and lifeless when we enter the realm of
prayer and importunate pleadings for salvation, full
salvation, and the mighty power of God to come upon
the people.

What a time we would have, and how the king-
dom of hell would be shaken, if all the hands, now
numbered as Christian, could be restored and filled
with life and power as we have mentioned, and be
lifted triumphantly to the skies ! Who doubts, if this
were done, Israel would prevail, and sin and Satan
would go down everywhere?

Christ's remedy for the withered hand is to stretch
it forth. This is what He told the man thus afflicted
before him, and he, in the effort to obey, suddenly felt
life and strength rush into the dead member.

If the withered hand is that of the unconverted

THE WITHERED HAND. 17 1

man, the thing to do is to fix the eyes on Christ, and
try to do with the paralyzed soul what He commands
to be done.

If the hand has become withered from disuse or
sin, and is that of the backslider, then sin is to be re-
nounced, and the long unused powers of the life must
be dedicated again to God, and the effort to obey in
all things be made, while the eye all the while is stead-
ily fixed on Christ.

The repentance of the backslider, whether he has
lapsed in the regenerated or sanctified life, is to do
the first works, take up neglected duties, and obey
God in every particular. The heart is sick, and the
hand is heavy, but He who made us bids the drooping-
hearted man to stretch forth the withered hand. Re-
turn to forsaken fields of duty, resume the old-time
benevolences, go to helping and assisting the needy
and fallen, invade the realms of importunate prayer
again, give heart, tongue, foot, hand, and voice
once more fully to God. In a word, with eyes fixed
on Christ, stretch forth the withered hand.

Reason will say, it is hopeless. Feeling may urge
you to wait for more emotion. Despair may whisper,
nothing will come of it ; and the Devil may tempt you
not to do so, but Jesus says, stretch it forth. So, in
His beloved name, do it ! The instant that you do so,
healing life, restoration, joy, and blessedness will rush

172 HEART TALKS.

into the spirit, and another being will be seen who has
a tongue to praise God, a foot to leap at His bidding,
and a hand, withered no longer, but able to lift up
the fallen, give freely to the needy, and pull down the
blessings of Heaven upon hundreds and thousands
of struggling immortal souls.

XVIII.
THE SMITTEN MOUTH.

PAUL, had been arrested by ecclesiastical authority,
and was standing before the Sanhedrim under
the charge of being an enemy to the Church. Being
allowed to speak for himself, he said, "Men and breth-
ren, I have lived in all good conscience before God
until this day." This was a first-class experience, and
one that few can truly claim as their own, and yet it
was instantly met with the loud, harsh command of
the high priest, "Smite him on the mouth !"

It would seem from this that an experience of a
high order was not relished by the scribes and doctors
of the temple. Perhaps there is an element of con-
demnation in the relation of high spiritual attainment
or obtaimnent to religious people who have degener-
ated into men of Church affairs, whose eyes have been
diverted from the Spirit in the wheels to the wheels
themselves. The Sanhedrim lived for the machinery,
but Paul had seen "a man's hand in the wheels." It
had a scar in the palm. To say that he had beheld
more than the high priest and the elders, was not only

presumptuous, but unpardonable, and called at once

J73

174 HEART TALKS.

for a crushing blow on the lips which had given such
umbrage.

It is an old offense and an old punishment. Christ
Himself, long before Paul's mishap, had in like man-
ner outraged the same high ecclesiastical circle, and
received a similar cruel blow upon His mouth. And
yet He had simply declared the truth in every word
which He had uttered.

It seems that some men do not want to hear the
truth, or anyhow the whole truth. They live obvi-
ously on lower planes of the spiritual life, and yet
would speak advisedly about the higher planes. Un-
der the plea of attending to the "wheels," to the va-
rious Sanhedrim meetings of the Church, they have
overlooked the privilege, duty, and necessity of wait-
ing ten days in humble supplication and expectancy
before God in the upper room. Giving only a few
-, minutes of each day to God in real prayer on their
knees, they feel perfectly competent to sit in judgment
upon servants of God who daily pray from three to four
hours upon their faces. Living at the foot of the
mountain, they indulge in smiles and considerable
criticism of one who arises in the camp, and speaks
of a fire-encircled Summit, where blessed truths were
engraven by God's finger on the tables of the heart.
They overlook the spiritual meaning in the toilsome
ascent of the mountain, the loneliness of the top, the

THE SMITTEN MOUTH. 175

waiting for days on God to reveal Himself. In a word,
they neglect the conditions of obtaining Divine mani-
festations and blessings, and yet cry out against the
statements of those who have fully obeyed these higher
demands of the gospel.

If the Christian, descending to the camp from the
fire-crowned mount, would only wear a veil, or if he
would live his experience without any oral testimony,
all would be well. It is the tongue that seems to hurt
so in certain circles. Therefore, be it resolved, that,
whosoever shall claim that he has received from
Heaven anything different from, or superior to, the
ecclesiastical circles of his village, town, or city, — be-
hold ! he shall be smitten at once upon the mouth. Be
it, also, resolved that, whosoever shall strike this same
offender with weapons of ridicule, misrepresentation,
and oppression, he shall be counted to have done the
Church a kindness, and rendered a service to God.

So the smiting goes on.

The sound of the blows are all over the land. The
last few years reveal a vision of blood. Clenched hands
are lifted, and fall with sickening thud upon mouths
testifying to the truth ; and the blood spurts.

What if this is a figure? Which is the more pain-
ful, a blow on the face, or private letters, published
articles, and public deliverances where ridicule and
unjust condemnation abound, and the thing struck at

176 HEART TALKS.

is not the face, but the man's reputation, influence,
standing, work, and happiness. The bruised face will
be well in a day or so ; but what about the heart and
life that have been struck? A cool linen bandage may
heal the one; but who can undo the hurt of a written
or printed lie? Can the writer himself do it? Who
is willing to undertake such a journey and such a task,
where the paper containing the misrepresentation or
fabrication has a circulation of from ten thousand to
five hundred thousand copies?

This slayer of his brother forgets that God asked
Cain where his brother Abel was. This smiter of the
Christian testifier forgets that God watches the fall
of a sparrow, much more that of a falling hand, whose
destination is a mouth that God made, and that is
declaring what God, in His glorious power, has done
and can do for the soul. He has also forgotten that
God is a just God, and that this very fact of Divine
justice and judgment will close the windows and doors
of heaven upon him, and transform the sky into an
impenetrable ceiling of brass. Prayer, like smoke, is
driven back into the eyes of such a man, and commu-
nion with heaven without repentance becomes im-
possible.

In a word, this man, under a closed heaven, is
now in fine condition to misunderstand, and even^be

THE SMITTEN MOUTH. 177

wrathful with a child of God who speaks of open skies,
descending doves, and flaming tongues of fire.

So it comes to pass that, look when and where we
will, there is a vision of clenched hands, smitten
mouths, and spurting blood. Blood is everywhere !

It is an age of blood-flowing, not simply in the
military world, where swords and cannon are used,
but in the after-history of investigation, where no po-
sition of responsibility and prominence will save a
man from violent attacks. The vision of blood is in
the political world, where one party spends most of
its time in belaboring the other. It is in the com-
mercial world, where, with every conceivable art, strat-
agem, and power, individuals as well as corporations
are trying to undo and destroy some real or fancied
opponent. It is in the literary world, where criticism
is as keen as the blade of the guillotine, and as pitiless
and unjust as the men who ran that instrument of
death in the Reign of Terror.

When we come to the ecclesiastical world, the
Church life, and, closer still, to the Christian life, we
would expect and crave to see something different
and better. But the vision of blood remains. Angry,
clenched hands and crimsoned mouths abound. Re-
ligious denominations are still seen firing at each
other, and chasing one another, as they do in war.

12

178 HEART TALKS.

Two divisions of one great common creed are still
debating about how to meet each other with amity
and brotherly kindness in their work, and failing to
do it. One of these bodies sends a delegate to the
other to convey greetings. He does so, and sits down,
when, in fifteen minutes, a leading man on the other
side tomahawks and scalps him so quickly and cleverly
in a platform reply, that the victim scarcely realizes
that he has been slain. The great warrior sits down,
with the scalp of the young chief at his belt, who,
covered with blood, has hardly yet comprehended
what has been done.

Look at the Church members striking at one an-
other. Hear the stewards talking about one another.
Listen to the preachers and evangelists judging, criti-
cising, and condemning one another. See how the
editors of Church papers are forever after one another.
It is a vision of blood everywhere! It is a spectacle
of cutting and slashing, stabbing and shooting, toma-
hawking and scalping, gouging and biting, wherever
you turn. Doubled fists, smitten mouths streaming
with blood, are on all sides. Heenan and Sayers,
Sullivan and Kilrain, and Corbett and Fitzsimmons
never gave harder and crueler blows in their line than
I have seen and heard given in the name of Christ
in this so-called Christian land.

We do not allude to warnings of and denunciations

THE SMITTEN MOUTH. 179

against sin that must be delivered from the Church
press and pulpit, but to personal attacks, the violent
assailing of individuals who love God, and are keep-
ing His commandments.

Listen to some of the words as they fall from the
lips of the smiter as he strikes the mouth of one of
God's Spirit-filled servants.

"He is not my style of preacher" — Smash !

"He does not cast out devils like I do. Hit
him!"— Smash!

"He believes in the second coming of Christ, and
is a visionary. Hit him, somebody — hit him, every-
body " — Smash !

"He believes that Christ can heal the body" —
Smash!

"He says, he has received the blessing of sanctifi-
cation as a work clear and distinct from his regenera-
tion. Let everybody strike him!" — Smash! smash!
smash !

"He is a Church-splitter — a crank — a schismatic —
an abuser of the Church and his brethren." Bang —
thud — smash !

"Did you hear him?"

"No; but somebody else did." — Smash!

"Did you investigate the Church-splitting matter,
and hear the other side of the case?"

"No ; and I do n't want to." — Bang !

ISO HEART TALKS.

"Would you condemn a man unheard? Is that
just, or right, or Christ-like?"

"I have n't time to talk with you. Hit him there,
some one! Strike him again! Knock him down!
That 's it ! Smash — smash ! Now, drag him down
the street like they did Stephen ! Beat him as he goes !
Roll him over and over ! Thrust him outside the walls !
Now finish him! Bang — thud — smash — smash —
smash! Is he dead? Quite dead? All right! Now
let us open Conference with the reading of the thir-
teenth chapter of First Corinthians, or begin divine
service by singing the hymn :

"Blest be the tie that binds

Our hearts in Christian love ;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above."

XIX.

THE SILENCE OF CHRIST.

IV A ANY, in studying the life of Christ, overlook
*• * * the sterner side of His character. They make
Him nothing but love ; invest Him with a forbearance
that has no end; and rob Him of justice, judgment,
and that ineffable dignity and grandeur belonging to
Him as King of kings and Lord of lords. They fail
to see that He who wept over Jerusalem, drove out
men and animals from the temple with uplifted
scourge and burning, indignant words, "Ye have made
my Father's house a den of thieves." That, while He
said, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest," He
also proclaimed, "Behold, your house is left unto you
desolate." That He who took little children in His
arms, said to the religious teachers of that day, "Ye
generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damna-
tion of hell?" That He who sat down, and opening
His mouth, taught the multitudes unweariedly for
hours, was silent in the presence of certain characters,
and would make them no answer whatever.

There is no contradiction in this course of Christ,
but perfect moral consistency. The explanation of

the varying conduct is found in the characters of the

181

1 82 HEART TALK'S.

individuals before Him. The Savior has evidently
more than one side to His personality. There is a
way of obtaining an audience, and enjoying delightful
communion with Him ; and there is a life we can live
which will make the skies empty, lock the gates of
heaven at our approach, and cause the Son of God
to maintain toward us an unbroken silence.

The dreadful fact of Divine silence is the thought
present to the reader; and this unspeakable calamity
we bring on ourselves.

Christ was notably silent to certain men. The
Bible says that, under the questions they put to Him,
"He answered not a word."

Christ is silent to some people to-day. Some are
honest enought to confess the great woe; in other
cases many see it. Whether in Bible times or to-day,
this Divine silence is not arbitrary, but is invariably
the result of something the man has done, or, deeper
still, what the man has become. Light is also thrown
on the matter in one of Paul's inspired statements, "If
we deny Him, He will also deny us." He is to us what
we allow Him or make Him to be. Beyond all doubt,
the fact of Christ ceasing to speak to a human soul
can be explained.

Christ was silent to Herod.

The Scripture says Herod was glad to behold Him

THE SILENCE OF CHRIST. 183

of whom he had heard much, and now hoped to
see Him perform some wonderful work. But no in-
terrogation that this corrupt, unprincipled man could
put to Jesus elicited the slightest reply or even a rec-
ognition of his presence. He said nothing, and did
nothing so that Herod marveled.

Christ had previously said of Herod that he was
a fox. He had a low, cunning nature. On top of
this was a vulgar curiosity to see Jesus, and behold
him work physical wonders that would make him
stare. To such a character the Divine Being is in-
variably silent. There is nothing to be said to such
a man except Judgment Day words, and that time
has not yet arrived.

The writer has been struck with the fact that,
after a remarkable outpouring of the Spirit on a meet-
ing, there is an immediate rush of a certain element
in the community to the next service, who are brimful
of curiosity to see what is going on; and invariably
we have observed on such nights a notable absence of
the Holy Ghost. He would not work to gratify such
a lust of the eye, or speak to men and women in such
a mental and spiritual state.

Again, Christ was silent to Pilate.

The Roman governor put many questions to Jesus,
and charged Him to answer, but the Evangels tell us,

1 84 HEART TALKS.

"He answered him nothing." Two replies, evidently
given for the benefit of the world, make all the more
remarkable Christ's silence to the individual.

The study of the Roman governor shows him to
have been timorous, cowardly, time-serving, and un-
just. It is hard to conceive of a blacker character than
that of the man who sat in judgment upon Jesus
Christ. He knew Him to be innocent, said he found
no fault in Him, and yet sentenced Him to the most
horrible death known to men. Who wonders that,
to the numerous questions he propounded, the Savior
made him no reply?

Still again, Christ was silent to the chief priests
and elders.

Matthew says, "When He was accused of the
chief priests and elders, He answered nothing."
And Mark states, "The chief priests accused Him of
many things, but He answered nothing."

Every one who has beheld and felt the power of
character; who has looked across the great gap and
chasm that yawns between virtue and vice, truth and
falsehood, righteousness and unrighteousness, can
thoroughly comprehend and appreciate the silence of
Christ to these men.

All of us have met persons, whom to talk with
is simply to waste words, and lose time. They have
put themselves where reason, truth, revelation, and

THE SILENCE OF CHRIST. 185

warning are all alike lost upon them. To such people
we finally become utterly voiceless.

In addition to this, we all know how the presence
of unsympathetic, uncongenial natures will freeze the
powers of speech, and drive us into profound silence.
The explanation of being strangely shut up to indi-
viduals, or before assemblies, can often be found right
here, while the exquisite suffering of being com-
pelled for years or a lifetime to be in the presence of
moral opposites can easily be imagined. Of course,
this leads to silence, long spells of silence, and whether
in business or family life, only that conversation is in-
dulged in which is absolutely necessary, or that is felt
to be one's duty.

We know of a married couple who lived over
twenty years in the same house, and never exchanged
a single word in that time. Neither one was religious,
but one had moral character, and the other had none.
One day there had been a revelation of a hideous, un-
principled heart, and straightway a silence of twenty
years fell in between the two.

If we contemplate a single feature of Pilate's char-
acter, his injustice, we can easily see that that alone
would be sufficient to account for Christ's voiceless-
ness before him. All of us have doubtless been thrown
with people at some time in our lives who seemed
utterly incapable of rendering us justice. No state-

1 86 HEART TALKS.

ment or explanation we could make them in self-
defense or extenuation, would make them change
their opinions or remove their prejudice.

I once wrote a number of letters to a prominent
man in order to disabuse his mind from the effect of
false reports of my work. I was slow to awaken to
the fact, but the awakening came at last, that he was
set in his judgment and conclusions, and would not
be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. From
that moment a profound silence fell on me toward
him, so far as self-defense is concerned. No matter
what is written or told him, I never utter a word.

Many a daughter-in-law has found out that her
mother-in-law will always side with her son. And
many a son-in-law has ceased to expect justice from
the mother of his wife. Such is the power of natural
laws and affections that the woman is unable to dis-
criminate and render true judgment. She is so biased
by heart and family ties that the son-in-law ceases to
expect justice, and falls into silence in the presence
of this familiar manifestation of character.

All these things we mention that we might see
why it is that, in spite of loud calling, testifying, pray-
ing, and preaching, some people obtain no answer
from Christ. The state of the heart is such, the char-
acter is such, that it is impossible for the Savior to
speak to them.

THE SILENCE OF CHRIST. 187

If a supposedly virtuous woman was seen chatting
pleasantly on all kinds of topics with a man who was
a notorious, impenitent libertine, observers who have
any knowledge of character would immediately con-
clude that the woman was not herself pure. There
could be pity and sorrow in a true woman's heart over
such a character, and a gospel warning might be given,
but there could be no friendly social conversation.

If I regard iniquity in my heart, says David, the
Lord will not hear me. So, far from answering us,
God will not even hear us. In other words, the kind
of character or life or heart we bring to God settles
the question whether we will hear from Him or not.

There are individuals to-day, and a number of
them were once Christians, to whom the Lord speaks
no more. It is plainly evident to the practiced spir-
itual eye. They are receiving no messages from Him.
They are speaking to a silent Christ. As long ago
prophesied, "They will call, and I will not answer."

Who has not beheld these persons, both in pulpit
and pew? And who has not heard them testifying,
praying, and preaching, and yet no answer from the
Son of God?

Saul, the first king of Israel, got into this dreadful
place, and his cry was, "God has departed from me,
and answereth me no more." He, by disobedience,

188 HEART TALKS.

had brought himself where the Divine Being quit talk-
ing to him. Jerusalem is in that state to-day. Let the
traveler go to what is called "The Wailing Place," and
* listen to the heartbroken cries, and then look up at
the empty heavens above, where dwells the silent God.
He came to them, and offered them eternal life. They
refused to listen to Him. He foretold them what
would at last come upon them as people, city, and na-
tion, that they would one day call, and there would
be no answer. It has all come to pass. The nation
has been scattered, the city is trodden under foot, the
temple is destroyed, and their God is silent above
them. He answers no more, neither by dreams and
prophets, nor by Urim and Thummim, nor by any
other way ; they, by their own conduct, have made for
themselves a silent God, one who speaks to them no
more.

May God, in His mercy, save the reader from this
unspeakable woe and calamity, — a silent Christ, a
Savior who has ceased to answer!

And yet there are men in the pulpit to-day who
are living under this curse. And there are men upon
ecclesiastical official boards, and women prominent in
Church work, and people religiously busy in many
ways, to whom Christ never speaks. And, sadder still,
there are men and women dying now, while we write

THE SILENCE OF CHRIST. 189

these words, to whom Christ is utterly silent, and the
despair in their breasts at this hour springs from the
fact that they made Him silent.

Again we repeat, May God save us from the im- .
measurable woe, both in life and death, of a silent /
Christ! '

XX.

WAITING ON THE LORD.

'T'HE Bible expression, "Waiting on the Lord," has
-*• several meanings according to the Scripture.
One is that of service. So the Levites and priests
were said to minister unto the Lord. Aaron, Eli,
Samuel, Zechariah, and many others were found in
the Tabernacle or Temple, actively engaged for God.
It has a broader meaning to-day, and service to God
can be offered not only in the church, but on street
and highway, and wherever sickness, sorrow, pain,
want, and sin can be found.

Another meaning is that of prayer. When men
separate themselves from their pleasures and pur-
suits, and linger for hours and days in prayer for some
special or general blessing, it is said to be a waiting
on the Lord. So Moses on the Mount, Daniel by the
river Hiddekel, Paul in the Temple, and the disciples
in the Upper Room, waited on God. We do the same
thing, whether at home or in the Church, when we
plead for certain blessings and wait in supplication
before the Throne.

A third meaning of the expression is a certain
190

WAITING ON THE LORD. 191

tarrying on the Divine Providence. We wait to know
the will of God in some steps of life, or to obtain ex-
planation of an inscrutable divine dealing, or receive
some peculiar deliverance, or enter upon the fulfill-
ment of some divine promise.

This last waiting includes the other two. In order
to tarry on God's time, the soul must abound in
prayer, and be found in the divine service. To neglect
either one would be to let go of the Savior, open the
heart to doubt and worry, and end in the final forsak-
ing of the post of duty where the Lord intended to
have met and relieved us. Concerning this three-
fold waiting on the Lord, we have some, blessed prom-
ises. Isaiah mentions four things as a certain result.

One is that we shall "renew our strength."

No argument is needed here to prove what has
been felt a thousand times by the child of God. Some-
thing is found at the mercy-seat of prayer, and about
the altars, and in the work of God, which is like new
life to the soul. We come away from the closet of
prayer and house of God with the feeling that we have
been renewed or made over again.

Another promise is that we "shall mount up with
wings as eagles."

The disciples took a great heavenward flight on
the morning of Pentecost; but it was no accident.
They had paid a great price for the privilege ; they had

192 HEART TALKS.

waited ten days in the dust for the joy of putting the
clouds under their feet.

Fletcher had upward soarings of religious experi-
ence, which many are fond of quoting, but not of
imitating. Anyhow they will not pay the price he
paid for his aerial ascents, which was four hours each
day spent in prayer.

Some discuss with great gravity and scholarly acu-
men these wonderful uplifts in the kingdom of grace.
They try to locate and then describe it in the realm
of psychology, when the explanation is to be found
in kneeology. A protracted waiting upon God will
always be rewarded by the gift of a pair of wings.
There is no shadow of a doubt upon the minds of
observers when a Christian gets them. All can see
he is mounting, and know he is far above the crowd
that is standing by, gazing after him.

The experience of wings lifts the soul suddenly
far above obstacles which just a moment before
seemed insurmountable. The experience also gives
a wonderful view of terrestrial things, God's works
enlarging and man's works looking exceedingly
small. Such caught-up people have also blessed
things to tell us of Christ and His Kingdom. They
seemed to have been near the Gates of Pearl. Let no
man condemn them who never had a pair of wings
given to his soul after days of importunity.

WAITING ON THE LORD. 193

A third promise is, we "shall run, and not be
weary." Have we not seen these people? They are
always going for God, going swiftly, and that without
seeming to be exhausted. They make no complaints,
seem to have no dyspepsia or nervous prostration, and
all they crave is the privilege of running for heaven.
This man does not say so much about visions and
views and great revelations; he is too busy running
for God, delivering His messages, charging the
enemy, executing flank attacks as well as front move-
ments, picking up the wounded, distributing lint,
making constant captures, and doing many other
things too numerous to mention.

A fourth promise is, that we "shall walk, and not
faint." It is placed almost last as the result of waiting
on the Lord ; but it is not less blessed than the other
two, and may be even more important.

In these words a great multitude of the quiet,
patient, faithful followers of Christ are presented.
Men in the treadmill of every-day work, women in
the toil and drudgery of home life. People so cir-
cumstanced that they can not run, but have to walk.
So many hours for labor, so many mouths to fill, so
many little garments to make, so many little ones to
teach, so many small duties to perform.

When men with handspikes uplift a great log,

they do not run, but walk, and with a slow, steady
13

194 HEART TALKS.

motion. There are some situations in the Christian
life, and some duties where we can not run, but are
compelled to go slowly. The load is heavy ; it requires
patience, deliberation, and steadiness, and will not
allow swiftness. Thank God that heaven has a bless-
ing for these quiet-lipped, grave-eyed, life-burdened
followers of Jesus! We can walk through all, and
not faint. It comes by waiting on the Lord.

An additional promise to the man who waits on
the Lord is, that "he shall inherit the land." In an-
other place David says, "He shall exalt thee to inherit
the land." The figure is one of complete deliverance,
perfect victory, and quiet establishment. Enemies are
removed, ownership and mastership is given, and
peace reigns supreme.

This last promise is made to the man who will wait
on the Lord in the sense of tarrying for the Divine
providence, or giving God His own time to do for us
what we have asked and He has promised. It is a
mark of great advancement in spiritual things when a
man can do this. Many try it and break down; but
some go to the end. Happy is such a man or woman
of God. They shall be repaid and blessed beyond
words to describe.

Some of us are marvelously inconsiderate here.
We forget that when we ask God for certain things

WAITING ON THE LORD 195

He has to deal with others as well as ourselves, and
always with free agents. He can not compel any one,
but has to work with them in full recognition of their
moral freedom.

The angel told Daniel, in explanation of a delayed
message from heaven, that he had been withstood by
a certain Prince, and hence prevented from coming.

It is a reasonable thing to wait on the Lord. It
is what we want others to do for us. Sometimes we
can not explain ourselves; sometimes our plans are
working, but the consummation has not come. So
we ask people to wait on us. If they love and trust
us, they will. In like manner we pray God to bring
certain things to pass. At once He starts the influ-
ences which are to prove successful ; but it takes time.
Many hearts and lives have to be touched and
changed. Then God has plans of His own, which we
do not see. He has. to work them out, while at the
same time He does not forget us, our past prayers,
and present waiting before Him. * Beyond all question
He is doing His best for us. His answers and deliv-
erances are on the way to us, struggling through .
human and Satanic opposition. Be patient a little
while longer, ye heartsick children of God. It will
yet come to pass, and you shall inherit the land.

The man of desperate acts takes things in his own

196 HEART TALKS.

hand. The suicide took matters in his own hand.
The people who flew to the wine-cup, the morphine-
bottle, to the world, and into sin, would not wait on
God.

The papers speak of a man who committed suicide
on account of poverty. The next day a large remit-
tance came by mail ; but he was in his grave, and had
placed himself there.

It pays to wait on God. Joseph looked at a closed
prison-door for years. Doubtless his heart often sick-
ened ; but he waited on the Lord. One day the door
opened, and Joseph not only walked out free, but was
exalted to rule over the land.

John Wesley had a curse in his life. He neither
committed murder nor suicide, as some men have
done under similar circumstances. He waited on the
Lord. The time came when the Lord completely de-
livered him.

One day in California, while sitting in a restaurant,
I heard a man call for his dessert and a cup of coffee.
The waiter tarried a little too long, he became impa-
tient, jumped up, stamped out, and slammed the door.
Just as the door closed behind him, and his feet were
on the pavement, the waiter came in, bearing a de-
licious dessert and a fragrant, steaming cup of coffee.
We have often since then thought of the simple scene.
It was a parable in itself in spite of its simplicity.

WAITING ON THE LORD. IQ7

The Lord keep us patient, faithful, steadfast. May
we believe in, and rely on, and wait for Him! He
has not forgotten us. Angels are on the way with
nectar and ambrosia. Above all, God is coming with
deliverance and blessing and honor and exaltation,
and says meanwhile for our comfort that even now all
things are working together for our good if we but
love Him.

XXI.
THE CLEANSING BLOOD.

T N the Old Testament God took a world of pains to
* teach men that the cleansing of the soul could only
be had through blood. This was the explanation of
the red life-currents which streamed from bird, lamb,
and bullock in the Jewish days. The meaning of the
many sacrifices was, that without the shedding of
blood there could be no remission of sins.

The next step was to show what or whose blood
was meant. So, under the combined teaching of
priest, prophet, and religious ceremony, the intelligent
Israelite got to know that it was not possible for the
blood of bulls and goats to purge the soul from the
defilement of sin, that a nobler sacrifice was typified,
and a more precious blood was yet to be poured out
for the human race.

In due time the great antitype appeared, and died
on Calvary. He suffered without the gate to sanctify
the people. The Fountain was opened up in the
House of David for sin and uncleanness. The means
for perfect heart-cleansing, for snowy whiteness of
soul, for complete purification from all sin, had come

at last. Though one had lain among the pots, yet

198

THE CLEANSING BLOOD. 199

now should his wings be as burnished silver and his
feathers like yellow gold. Not only should the soul
be made white as snow, but whiter than the snow.
The blood of Christ was to do it.

About this precious, blessed blood John has sev-
eral things to say in his first epistle.

First, that it cleanses.

This is certainly an all-important statement, for
many have been and still are looking in other direc-
tions for the longed-for purification. The eye has
been fixed on Time, Old Age, Church Membership,
Good Resolutions, Growth in Grace, and upon many
other things to obtain that whiteness and cleanness
which every soul must at times long for, and must also
possess in order to see God.

But John says that it is the blood that cleanseth.
This God-inspired announcement ought to save mill-
ions from countless and heartbreaking mistakes.
There is absolutely nothing in any one of the things
just mentioned to purify the heart. Whoever trusts
to them is a fool, and doomed to bitter disappoint-
ment.

The Bible says, "The blood cleanseth." Myriads
are shouting this in the sky, and multitudes are pro-
claiming it on earth.

There is no need to stop and explain to certain
critical classes the difference between the procuring

200 HEART TALKS.

cause, the meritorious cause, the instrumental cause,
and all the other niceties and hairsplitting definitions
seen by scholarly minds in the plan and process of re-
demption. The great, blissful fact is, that the blood
of Christ cleanses. This truth alone makes the sink-
ing, despairing heart leap for joy, and turns the con-
fused mind from its wanderings through a labyrinth-
ian maze of theological, psychological, and diabolical
error, and shows it, in a word, where and when and
how spiritual cleanness can be found. But the apostle
states another fact about the blood.

It cleanses from all sin.

This goes even beyond the first statement in its
revelation of the depth and power of Christ's redemp-
tion. Many have brought part of their sins to God,
but not all. Many believe that they have committed
some things which can not be pardoned; that they
have sinned away their day of grace; that their souls
have been hurt irremediably by their own conduct;
and that they are now doomed and certain to be
damned.

All this gloomy talk is nothing but an emphatic
denial of God's own Word, that the blood of Christ
cleanses from all sin.

When God says a thing is so, what can man say
after that? Is God a liar? Would He deceive a soul
with false hopes? Do not all see that neither one is

THE CLEANSING BLOOD. 2OI

possible? Then if all sin can be cleansed by the blood,
what need for any one to be in gloom or despair?

Let men say what they will, the Bible states that
all sin is washed away. The guilty individual may
cry out, "You have no idea what I have done." My
reply is, "I do not care what you have done; the
Scripture says that the blood cleanses from all sin."
But the rejoinder is, "I have done thus, and so and
so." All right, the blood cleanseth from all sin.

Once, while quite sick at home, a lady requested
an interview. Her apology for insisting on seeing me
when I was physically prostrate, was that she was in
great spiritual darkness and agony of mind. I can
never forget the anxious, distressed face of the visitor
as she said:

"I am in darkness. For the love of God point me
to a passage in the Bible that will save me from
despair."

Sick as I was, I felt my face kindling with joy as
I repeated, "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son,
cleanseth us from all sin."

"O," she replied, "that is so sweet!" And in a
few moments went away with a bright countenance.
But the adversary flung another cloud upon her the
next day, blacker than the first. This time she went
directly to the Bible, crying out, "Lord, let my eye
fall on some word of thine which will bring me light,

202 HEART TALKS.

victory, and complete deliverance." Suddenly, as she
read on, this verse fairly flashed itself before her eyes,
"When I see the blood, I will pass over you." The
result of a single reading was instantaneous and
permanent relief.

A few months after this I was going from New
York to Boston. The conductor came to me on the
train, and, according to custom, wanted my fare. I
handed him my ticket, which I had bought, and he
gave me instead a small, red slip of cardboard, which
I stuck in my hatband, and then placed the hat in
an iron hatrack on the wall. At the next town quite
a number of people got off, and another crowd came
on. The conductor, not knowing me, approached
where I was sitting and reading, and wanted my rail-
road fare. In reply I looked up and pointed to the red
slip in my hat, whereupon he instantly passed by.
This happened several times, until finally, begrudging
even a few moments from the book in which I was
immersed, the next time he came by and asked for
my money, I never raised my eyes from the volume,
but silently pointed with my finger to the little red
card in my hat. The effect on him was always power-
ful. Invariably he passed me by without saying
anything. In a word, when he saw the red, he
passed over me. The little incident threw a gracious

THE CLEANSING BLOOD. 203

light on the Old Testament passage, and it became
more precious and real than ever.

God, help us to believe. No matter what the mis-
take, mishap, error, or sin may be ; may we have faith
enough in the Bible and in the atonement to sprinkle
the blood upon it. God's promise is, that when He
sees the blood He will pass over.

A third statement of the apostle is equally remark-
able and comforting. The blood cleanses from all sin
while we are walking in the light.

This statement is more important than many
dream, who hastily read the Scripture.

Numbers are contending to-day that regeneration
is purity, that no sin is left in the converted heart.
But this passage in John declares to the contrary.
Mr. Wesley says it is one of the strongest verses in
the Bible to teach the second work of grace.

If the reader will observe, John says that the man
who obtains this peculiar heart-cleansing from all sin
is in the light, is walking in it, and has fellowship with
his Christian brethren. Here is a picture, not of a
sinner, but of a child of God. He is in the light, is
evidently growing in grace, is moving forward all the
time, is in loving communion with other Christians,
and right there the blood of Christ cleanses him from
all sin. Moreover, the sacred writer says that it is

204 HEART TALKS.

"sin," not "sins," that he is cleansed from. The con-
clusion being unanswerable that a sin principle is left
in the heart of the man who is walking in the light;
in other words, that the Christian did not obtain
purity in regeneration; but something is left which
requires the blood of Christ to purge and deliver him
from.

A fourth comforting teaching of the verse written
by John is seen in the immediate appropriation of the
blood by the regenerated or sanctified child of God,
in case of neglect of duty or positive transgression.
The word to believing souls at such a time is sweeter
than the thrilling note of the silver bugle which an-
nounced the dawn or birth of the year of jubilee.
"The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us
from all sin."

Deplorable as it is to fall into sin, yet God never
intended that we should sink in paralyzing despair
and perish, in case of the wrong thought, word, or
deed. He would have His grieving child instantly
confess all to Him, promise to be more faithful in the
future, and believe that the blood of Christ cleanses
him from this most humiliating of sins, a sin commit-
ted after the reception of grace and light, and Christ
had become the Lord and Master of the heart and life.
Thank God, the blood cleanses even then and there!

The fifth thought of comfort in the verse is that

THE CLEANSING BLOOD. 205

the blood cleanses now. The verb is in the present
tense. It does not say that the blood will cleanse;
but that it does cleanse; it cleanses now.

Then if it cleanses now, why should one wait a
week, day, hour, or a single minute for the soul's
purification and restoration.

This one verse dashes to pieces the old Dark Age
Theology, where Time, Bodily Humiliation, Peter's
Pence, and Pilgrimages were invested with atoning,
saving, and sanctifying power, and so Christ was
robbed of His glory. To this day evangelical Chris-
tianity is burdened with these old, false Middle Age
teachings.

There is nothing in bodily mortifications, and the
flight of years to cleanse the soul. It is all right to
groan and humble ourselves ; but it is the Blood, after
all, that can alone cleanse ; and, thank God ! it cleanses
now! The instant that the soul really believes this,
light, joy, and deliverance is sure to come. If the
blessed fact is turned upon any sin in the life, or all
sin, it is bound to go. If directed against the sin
which remaineth in them who are truly regenerate,
who are walking in the light, that also will as speedily
and consciously depart; the Holy Ghost not only
bearing witness to it, but the soul of the man himself
all conscious of the departure. Here is where men
are falling or rising to-day. Here is where they are

206 HEART TALKS.

floundering or flying. It is as they have read and re-
ceived this marvelous Bible passage.

If our faith can not grasp the wonderful state-
ment made in it, then, of course, we are shut out of its
blessedness, for Christ can do no mighty work where
there is unbelief. If we do not believe that the blood
of Christ can destroy and take away inbred sin, He
can not do it. But if we can and do believe that He
can, and that He does, then, all glory and praise to
God! the blood cleanses us now from all sin. He
Himself has uttered the amazing words, "According
to your faith, so shall it be unto you." Faith is not
only the condition of salvation, but the measure of
salvation. Again, Christ speaks, and says, "All things
are possible to him that believeth."

Well might men say, after this utterance, "Lord,
I believe!" Why should they with tears add, "Help
thou mine unbelief." Faith honors God, faith pleases
God, and faith in the power of the blood to cleanse
now from any and all sin, will bring the blessing de-
sired down upon the soul every time, and world with-
out end.

XXII.

DWELLING AMONG LIONS.

SOME Scripture passages can only be unlocked by
experience. We may think we understand; but
it requires more than a knowledge of grammar, rhet-
oric, and the laws of exegesis to clear up the mystery.

When David said that his soul had dwelt among
lions, a child's idea at once would be that he had
been in the woods with wild beasts. This interpre-
tation with the flight of time disappears, and some-
thing of the truth dawns upon the mind; but the
wholeness of it remains for the deeply spiritual heart
to comprehend.

It is not long in the Christian life before the child
of God discovers the lions which David speaks of,
and he will freely confess that for some reasons the
animals of the forest would be pleasanter companions.

One of the dreadful facts about souls which de-
part from God into sin, is the steady and unmistak-
able drift into the habits, lives, and, finally, the appear-
ance of animals. The devil, who is a fallen spirit, is
called a serpent and dragon, and with profound reason
for such nomenclature. The gravitation of ten thou-
sand devils is seen first to be in the coarse, brutal ani-

207

208 HEART TALKS.

mal nature of a demoniac, and then from him into a
drove of hogs.

When human souls cut loose from God, the drift
to the animal life is sure and evident. Music, liter-
ature, and other things may retard the progress some-
what to human eyes ; but the awful undertow is there,
and the man is being steadily carried out to the sea
of fleshly grossness and carnality. The forces in the
man's will and pursuits, and in the refinement of the
social circle, are felt by and by not to be equal to the
strange power which is dragging the spirit from like-
ness to God, and sinking it into the habits, ways, ap-
petites, selfishness, and groveling existence of an
animal.

Another curious thing is, that such men and wo-
men do not adopt one type, but fall, almost insensibly
to themselves, into every variety of animal life known
to man. So, in looking upon the multitudes of earth,
we see not only lions, but wolves, foxes, hogs, goats,
monkeys, snakes, and all the rest of the human me-
nagerie. I hardly need ask the reader if he has seen
men and women who have impressed him in appear-
ance and ways with the animals just mentioned.

Neither jeans nor broadcloth can hide the hog at
the table who evidently is not eating to live, but living
to eat.; A wolf looking at a lamb is a familiar spec-
tacle in society. The human monkey who lives to be

DWELLING AMONG LIONS, 209

laughed at is in every neighborhood. And who has
not seen the eyes of the fox fastened on you in office,
parlor, or church ; and felt the crawly approach of the
snake, the touch of whose hand and soft, slippery
style of speech created a sickening sensation similar to
that when a serpent is discovered to be near.

These horrible likenesses instantly disappear under
the regenerating and sanctifying power of God; and
in this fact we obtain the second proof of what has
been stated, that a spirit, human or angelic, which
departs from God becomes animalized.

David's affliction was in being compelled to dwell
awhile among men whom he could best describe as
lions. He may have been thinking only of the feroc-
ity of the beast ; but it is doubtful. The full photo-
graph reveals a catlike approach, treacherous waiting,
the sudden spring, terrible roar, crushing blow, grind-
ing teeth, tearing claws, and all the vast strength and
cruel nature of the great brute of the forest.

With such men as Saul and Doeg to deal with,
and such characters as Joab, Abishai, Ahithophel, and
Shimei about him, the noble, magnanimous, spiritual
David felt the repugnance and suffering analogous
to one condemned to dwell with wild animals in the
wilderness.

Christ knew what it was to be among lions when

He looked into the pitiless faces of the high priest
14

210 HEART TALKS.

and elders, as He stood arrested and bound before
them. He also saw as well as felt them in the dread-
ful treatment He received from the hands of a brutal
soldiery, by whom He was tormented for hours
through the night.

Paul was among lions when he stood before the
Sanhedrim, or confronted the Jewish populace as,
enraged over his religious experience, they cast dust
in the air and howled for his death.

A Christian has lived a very obscure and solitary
life who does not in time get to know the awful depths
in the expression, "dwelling among lions." All of
us have been among the lions. Some only for a little
while; but others, through God's providence, have
to abide with them a long time.

All will agree that for a child of God to be com-
pelled to stay several hours in a room filled with drink-
ing, gambling, cursing men, would be like being cast
among lions. But the meaning goes deeper still. The
verse has profounder and more painful applications.

It is to live year after year in a godless community,
where Christ is forgotten, the Sabbath desecrated, the
Bible and religion laughed at, while the devil is the
unquestioned monarch and ruler of the place. The
actual sight of lions rolling over each other, now gam-
boling and playing, and now fighting each other with
fearful roars and gaping wounds, would not be a more

DWELLING AMONG LIONS. 211

dreadful spectacle to behold than what many of God's
children are compelled to witness from day to day and
year to year, in towns and cities that seem utterly
given up to every kind of folly and sin.

Dwelling among lions is to be a member of a cold,
dead, formal, worldly congregation, where a conver-
sion never takes place, where genuine revivals are
laughed at and denounced, where the class-meeting is
abandoned, and the church given over to lectures,
Chautauquan circles, church suppers, ice-cream festi-
vals, grab-bag performances, and every conceivable
kind of amusement.

Dwelling among lions is to be a member of a
Conference Synod, Presbytery, or Council, where no
one believes that God can and does sanctify the soul
instantly in answer to consecration, prayer, and faith.
The roar and rending that takes place over such a
testimony and Church report will show that all the
lions are not dead yet.

It is to stand up in some Preachers' Meeting and
claim the experience of entire sanctification, and
gently urge the blessing upon others. The sight of
a half-dozen persons springing, so to speak, at the
testifier's throat in loud and angry denial, will throw
considerable light on David's words, "My soul hath
dwelt among lions."

It is to sit in a car, stage-coach, or at a hotel

212 HEART TALKS.

table where escape is impossible, and be compelled
to listen for minutes or hours to the profanity or
obscenity of young traveling agents.

It is to be a member of an irreligious household,
and feel as lonely and even lonelier than Robinson
Crusoe on his island, or a hermit in the desert.

It is to be united for life to a man or woman
whose unspiritual, carnal, or worldly life makes a gap
and chasm between the husband and wife, like that
between a man and an animal. There are mutual,
instinctive shrinkings from each other, as a man would
draw back from an animal, or an animal would depart
from a man. But the laws of God and the State are
such that the ghastly companionship can not be
broken.

Again, the experience is seen in being thrown with
very disagreeable religious people. They claim the
nature of the sheep; but keep up the old-time roar,
the slash of the claw, the bite of the tooth, and the
heavy blow of the paw. It seems impossible for them
to let a person come into or leave their presence with-
out inflicting a gaping wound. "The sermon was
wrong," "the exegesis was faulty," "the manner was
not pleasing," "the voice was too loud," "the dress
was objectionable," and so on, endlessly. They are
self-commissioned to set everybody right but them-
selves. They have slaps, scratches, bites for all their

DWELLING AMONG LIONS. 213

brethren and sisters, which they call heavenly rebukes
and revelations. They are Divinely appointed to go
around and tell everybody how to dress and who to
marry, and how to do generally. They have received
a revelation from God that it is wrong for a man to
wear a mustache, while women must wear Mother
Hubbard-looking dresses, and let their hair hang
down their backs like the mane of a Shetland pony.
They have, moreover, just received some new light,
with some new notions, and everybody must come
right over into their way of thinking, or take the con-
sequences of going at once into backsliding, and
finally into hell.

Again, the lions are seen in the shape of argu-
mentative and disputatious, religious people. They
look in the midst of their pulpit, platform, and pen
deliverances, not to say attacks, as if they were after
mashing and killing a man, instead of saving him.
Everybody is wrong, and they are right. They have
just received the last edition of the Bible from heaven.
The world is getting worse all the time; Saturday is
the true Sunday; Turkey and the whole Moham-
medan Empire was to go down in 1898; and whoso-
ever will not believe and receive these things ought
to be kicked out of the community and sent to hell in
a body. This is just the way it looks and sounds.

Still again, the lions are beheld in the form of

214 HEART TALKS.

untidy religious people. The apology made for them
is that they are eccentric. The plain truth in English
is, that in body and apparel they are unclean. We
expect nothing better of lions, for they have neither
soap nor towels, and have to wear one suit for a life-
time. But there is no excuse for human beings, with
springs and rivers flowing around them in great num-
bers and overflowing abundance, while soap can be
had for a cent a bar.

It is a great mistake to quote the wild life and
rough manners of John the Baptist, and the unkempt
condition of Elijah as God's idea of a man's life and
appearance. These two men were great, not because
of these things, but in spite of them. The Baptist is
not heaven's conception of the perfect man, with his
shaggy mantle, food of locusts, almost clotheless
body, and generally ascetic life.

Jesus Christ is the ideal man! With his tunic,
sandals, and the garment woven without a seam, He
was well clothed. And He came eating and drink-
ing. He was the sound, wholesome, morally sym-
metrical man, who is worshipped around the world
to-day, and is drawing all men unto Himself. The
children were not afraid of Him, but nestled in His
arms ; the women sat at his feet ; the sick and troubled
flocked to Him, and as the Pharisees themselves said,
"Behold the whole world is gone after Him."

XXIII.
THE BLESSINGS OF TIME.

TIME is a segment cut out of the rim or circle of
Eternity. It is a kind of projection or loop from
an endless line. It comes out of the eternal as an in-
finitesimal part of it, and is to be swallowed up by it
as a raindrop falls back into the ocean, from which
it was originally lifted. The angel with uplifted hand
foretells its approaching funeral, and declares in
trumpet tones, "That there should be time no longer."

But with all its comparative littleness as to dura-
tion, what tremendous events have transpired and
will yet occur between its two gates — the Beginning
and the End. The creation of a race is seen, its thrill-
ing history of sin, sorrow, defeats, redemption, strug-
gles, victories, death, resurrection, and the final judg-
ment and everlasting division into the Lost and Saved.
Then comes the closing scene of the heavens rolling
up, the earth on fire, Satan cast into hell, and Christ
victorious over all for evermore.

To the individual life and history, time is scarcely
less momentous, for it brings to each soul the very
things that have come in a colossal scale to the world.
Between the cradle and the grave each man and wo-
man is made to realize the fact of two other worlds

215

216 HEART TALKS.

besides this, that are contending for the soul ; the one
to pull down and destroy, and the other to uplift and
save. Sin, sorrow, sickness, failure, suffering in many
forms, come to all. So, also, does salvation appear,
with pardon, peace, purity, usefulness, happiness, and
blessedness in its hands, as gifts to the believing,
obedient soul.

To some, time is only a curse and a burden
through lives of evil. They are glad to get rid of it.
There are others who not the less feel the sorrowful
load which the years bring to the mind, heart, and
body, but through Christ have learned to endure all
patiently, in hope of an immortal crown and joys
that never die beyond the grave.

There is still a third class who, not the less sensi-
tive to the ills, pains, hardships, disappointments,
mortifications, crosses, and troubles which are neces-
sarily connected with an earthly existence, yet have
made such discoveries through the teaching of the
Spirit, that they plainly see how time, under God's
blessing, is a friend to grace, and does through Divine
power what nothing else could possibly do.

One thing it brings to the true child of God is the
spirit of moderation.

The force of a devoted Christian life, for all its
desirableness, is not without peril. A stationary en-
gine, as it lies sidetracked without coal, water, or fire,

THE BLESSINGS OF TIME. 217

is helpless and useless. We have plenty of such in
the Church to-day. But an engine trembling with a
mighty head of steam needs a steady hand and level
head at the throttle; for some have gone too fast,
some run beyond the depot, some pitch down a bank,
and others are blown up.

There is a danger of an intolerant, arbitrary, and
even fierce spirit creeping into the hearts of the newly
converted and sanctified, under the mighty inflow of
Divine glory and power. The conservation and
proper direction and use of this great spiritual force
is not at once learned by them. The boiler is injured
at times by heatings not commanded of God, the bell
and whistle terrifies and paralyzes rather than warns,
and sometimes people are run over who might have
been saved. The cowcatcher is put at an angle, not
so much to lift up as to grind and crush. People are
grieved whom God has not grieved.

Other Christians have as much steam as the fiery,
new engine on the road ; but have distributed it evenly
on the gospel train, so that not only is a proper speed
kept up, but the passengers are made comfortable as
well; while the new locomotive is mindful mainly of
its whistle and high rate of running, and its passen-
gers, missing certain genial, heavenly, Christ-like in-
fluences that should stream backward in proper chan-
nels, slowly freeze.

2l8 HEART TALKS.

The new engine is apt to indulge in caustic
remarks at the expense of the older locomotives, albeit
some of them for many years have maintained the
unbroken record, "On Time."

The only hope for the case just mentioned is to be
found in what Christ will be able to do through time.
Nothing else can do it — light, argument, exhortation,
warning, example, and even the Divine patience and
pity, will not effect the change from intolerance and
arbitrariness to a spirit of gentleness and moderation.
But time, through grace, will do it. The man will
little by little see his honest, intellectual mistakes, his
misjudgments of men, and his erroneous conceptions
of truth and duty. What a relief all around !

Great spiritual light poured into the mind does not
always mean that the head is wise and the judgment
will be infallible. Then, again, we can not read the
hearts of men. Some people do not parade all they
are doing for God and man. In every Church I have
served as pastor, there were individuals who would
never give publicly, nor even sign a card ; but never-
theless they contributed a great deal more than some
who cried out in tones that could be heard all over the
Church, "Put me down twenty-five dollars !"

I once thought a man was niggardly; but found
afterwards he was supporting two preachers in a for-
eign land, and saying nothing about the matter.

THE BLESSINGS OF TIME. 2ig

L/ittle by little with time the eyes get open. Our
lips are not as ready with criticism and judgment as
of yore. With no less zeal for God and His cause,
yet it is now a zeal according to knowledge. The
moderation is not a cooling off of religious experi-
ence, nor a curtailing of work, nor a withholding of
testimony. It is, instead, a deliverance from hastiness
of judgment, jumping to conclusions, and quickness
to suspect and speak hardly and severely of others.
It is the departure of a domineering, autocratic spirit
and manner. It is the correcting of pure love, the
mellowing of the Christian into a calm-eyed, level-
headed, sweet-hearted, kindly-tongued man. He is
as true to God and the gospel as ever; but all the
more true in that he has learned to be undeviatingly
kind to men whom God made and Christ died for.
He has the spirit of moderation.

A deeper apprehension of what we mean is to be
had by contrasting the counsel and speeches of young
men on the floor of Convention and Conference, with
the utterances of the older men. A second illus-
tration is beheld in the loquacity and bearing of a
young graduate from a theological college when
placed in charge of his first work, or in the company
of men that he thinks have not had the advantages he
has enjoyed.

An eminent man once said that, "Early in life as

220 HEART TALKS.

a student I thought I knew everything; later, noth-
ing ; still later, something." Here was moderation.

Another man said in the beginning of his Christian
life he thought everybody was white. Then, with
certain revelations and experiences, he concluded all
were black. Now he says all look gray. We judge
that he meant he had found good traits in bad people,
and objectionable things in good people, and so mix-
ing his colors he got a neutral tint on his glasses with
which he viewed the world. While not accepting all
of his theology, yet it would be well to quickly recog-
nize the good in all, and at the same time see if our
own willfulness, headiness, quickness to judge and
condemn, may not be the means of turning still other
people into critics and judges of ourselves, and so
cause them to think as they observe these dark lines
against our white professions, that, after all, there is
no pure white in the Christian life ; that gray is all that
we can hope for possibly.

Another blessing that comes with the flight of time
is what I would call the outgrowing of certain things.
Some of us remember when aprons and knee-pants
were discarded ; also when marbles and tops failed to
interest us. As children we had hung breathless over
the stories of "Robin Hood," "Robinson Crusoe," and
the "Swiss Family Robinson." One day, when near-
ing the twenties, we took up the books and tried to

THE BLESSINGS OF TIME. 221

read them, wondering where the charm was which
once we felt in their pages. They now wearied us.
There was still fascination in the books for a younger
generation ; but not for us, for we had outgrown them
in mind, as our body had outgrown the little shirt-
waists we once wore on the days we could walk under
our father's dining-table without touching it with the
top of our head.

The soul is constantly advancing and developing,
and grows faster when properly treated. It is a piti-
ful thing to see it kept down to playthings and picture-
books in the intellectual and spiritual life, when it
ought to be grappling with the greatest truths and
solving the deepest problems.

We have all noticed how people tire of various
things after a few repetitions. They weary of certain
amusements and accomplishments, become bored with
visiting and visitors, and fagged to death with travel.
Yet there was a time when these things were like
Paradises to them. They still charm other novices for
a while ; but the older and wiser ones turn in other and
new directions for contentment and satisfaction. The
explanation is that the soul is still growing. Made for
the illimitable and the eternal, how can this planet,
with all that it contains, satisfy permanently a spirit
that Christ says is greater than the world, and is al-
ways reaching out for something higher, mightier,

222 HEART TALKS.

and better than it has? So, by and by the world itself,
with all its pleasures and pursuits, becomes an out-
grown thing.

The idea of an individual going back on earthly
routes for the satisfaction and rilling of mind and
heart, is as absurd as a man trying to wear the gar-
ments and read the books of boyhood days. He looks
on the same scenes that once made his heart leap;
but the heart never bounds again as it did at the first
sight. He has outgrown and passed beyond them.

In the religious life we are told to leave the first
principles, and to go on to perfection. This does not
mean that we give them up in the sense of renunci-
ation of their benefits and denial of their truth, any
more than a man gives up the alphabet when he gets
to reading, and takes up the study of history, art, and
science.

We have been made to marvel at preachers spend-
ing years in the discussion of water baptism, laying
on of hands, grades in the ministry, etc. Time was
we tarried there; but we saw something better on
ahead, and went on.

Some ministers are wedded to the ecclesiastical
regalia of beaver hat and clerical coat. Others prefer
to lay them aside, and do so without any condemna-
tion of heart or lips of those who prefer the minis-
terial uniform. But in their hearts they feel they have

THE BLESSINGS OF TIME. 223

in a sense outgrown the garb, and prefer to be recog-
nized as Christ's servants in other ways.

Some delight in titles, and, as Christ says, love
to be called Rabbi, Rabbi, in the market-places. The
day comes when all these things, together with the
semicircular row of chairs on the conspicuous plat-
form, get to be exceedingly small, and become per-
fectly sickening to the soul.

Some rejoice in the red tape and machinery of the
Church and Conference. Some delight in the office
of Conference secretary, chairman of committees, and
places on Boards of all kinds. Others have seen the
Spirit in the wheels, have beheld a man's hand in the
midst of the complex machinery which Ezekiel de-
scribes, and have had such a vision of a marred coun-
tenance with a crown of thorns on a blood-
besprinkled brow, that they can not with any heart or
willingness go back to anything that is less spiritual
and divine. They have outgrown the old life, have
cracked the shell and got the kernel, have stripped
away the envelope, and stand thrilled with the sweet,
heavenly handwriting they have found there.

Let those who love platforms, big occasions, pub-
lic orations, chaplaincies, fraternities and lodges, fetes
and orations, Church lobbying and wire-pulling, se-
cret meetings and councils, dignities and honors — let
them go after them. We would not condemn them.

224 HEART TALKS.

We only say that the soul, all-panting for Christ and
Christ alone, has seen Him, and is in full pursuit, re-
fusing to be diverted or turned aside by any object,
and determined to settle on nothing less or lower than
Jesus, the Son of God. The dead can bury the dead;
he proposes to preach the gospel with the Holy Ghost
sent down from heaven. Men may worship the Tem-
ple; but he is after the Lord of the Temple. Men
may dispute and wrangle about the chief seats in the
synagogue ; they can have them all ; he does not desire
a single one; he is perfectly satisfied in sitting at the
feet of the Savior. He craves no newspaper puffs and
notices; wants no college complimentary degrees;
fishes for no praise or flattery, and is not one particle
hurt in being overlooked and set aside. The figure
of the suffering, dying Christ on the cross has been
burned into his soul by the baptism of fire, and weaned
him forever from the littleness, hollowness, fussiness,
swagger, and strut of life. For the first time he knows
what Paul meant when he said, "Let no man trouble
me; for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord
Jesus ;" and for the first time he goes to the very bot-
tom of the hymn :

" When I survey the wondrous cross

On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride."

XXIV.
THE FALL OF BALAAM.

THE word fall suggests the thought of height or
position from which to be cast down. A man
flat on the ground has nothing in a physical sense
to fall from or fall to. The Bible says that Judas "fell,"
which quiet statement is sufficient to shut the mouths
of those who say he never possessed redeeming grace.
If answer is made that it is said he fell from the
"apostleship," our reply is that the idea of Christ in-
ducting an unconverted man into the ministry is sim-
ply unthinkable. Judas fell from the apostleship,
which position means more than an office, and stands
for spiritual light, life, and grace as well.

And so Balaam fell.

This means that he had something to fall from.
That he was a good man to begin with, no thoughtful
reader of the Bible or student of the human heart
can deny.

In the first place he was a prophet. Not self-
instituted ; but God called and used. The fact of this
ecclesiastical position shows that he was all right at

first. He who said, "If the blind lead the blind, they
15 225

226 HEART TALKS.

both will fall into the ditch," will hardly be guilty of
the inconsistency of placing an unconverted man over
the unsaved. The preacher or prophet of God's
choosing and ordination is bound to be a good man.
He may fall away in after years ; but when the call and
installment take place, he is all right.

Two indications of Balaam's piety might be over-
looked by the hasty reader. One appears in the state-
ment that when the servants of Balak came with the
request that he would come and curse a certain people
that were covering the land, Balaam's prompt reply
was that he would have to ask God. This unquestion-
ably shows a close walk with the Lord. Let the
Christian reader ask himself if the first impulse with
him, and immediate practice, is to bring to God for
guidance and approval everything that comes up in
life in the way of duties, and especially matters of per-
sonal advantage.

We read that Balaam obtained an early reply from
God telling him not to go with the men. This imme-
diate answer from heaven is another striking proof
of the man's acceptance and spiritual standing. Some
who read these lines will recall how many hours have
been spent by them on their knees awaiting light and
a response from God in regard to certain steps of life.
But there is a life. where the soul gets constant and
instant direction. Balaam in this first view of him

THE FALL OF BALAAM. 227

seems to have been at that point, or, rather, on that
high moral ground.

Up to this moment the man seems blameless, but
after this we get an unmistakable glimpse of inbred
sin and the peculiar direction it took in his case. Next
day, we read, the servants of Balak returned with
still greater urgings that he would come, and with
assurance of reward. Right here is seen the inner
trouble, "the ground of the heart" of the prophet, in
his own words, that he would go in and see if the
Lord would allow him to depart this time. Here at
once flashes into view the "proneness to wander," the
"bent to backsliding," which the Bible recognizes in
God's people, and which the Lord wants to burn out
with the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire.

It should have been sufficient for Balaam that God
had answered in the negative on the day before. God
does not change, and if it was wrong for the prophet
to go yesterday, it was wrong for him to go to-day.
But the inclination toward a forbidden thing was al-
ready in him, and growing as well. Already his eyes
were fastened on the "wages of unrighteousness,"
which, according to the apostle, wrought his ruin.

Some have wondered that the Lord permitted him
finally to go. But he was no more allowed to do as
he did than any Christian is sanctioned in wrong-
doing. Man is a free moral agent, and can not be

228 HEART TALKS.

forcibly and physically restrained. When Christians
go into sin, they realize that they have an indwelling
power to do so, in spite of light, grace, warnings, re-
bukes, and protests from man and God. In this power
Balaam went. The Bible says God went out to "with-
stand" him. He could not, consistently with the prin-
ciples of His kingdom and the moral constitution of
the man, bind him with ropes, imprison and in other
ways keep him from departing, but He could "with-
stand him;" i. e., throw difficulties, obstacles, and
warnings in his way.

And so an angel met him down the road with a
flaming sword, and waved hirri back.

The "perverse" man, as the Bible calls him, went
on. There are many like him to-day, the similarity
being not only in wrongdoing, but in being divinely
met down the road with warnings and swords of flame.
When Christians receive strange and unexpected
rebukes from human lips, and, at times, in letters,
it is time to inquire in the life, and see if all is well.

Of course, a child of God may expect wrathful
utterances from the world, and sharp lectures and
faultfindings from religious oddities, croaks, and
cranks. But if the remonstrance and warning come
from really good people, the angel side of the world,
there is cause for alarm. In the ghastly moral falls
that now and then take place among Christians, the

THE FALL OF BALAAM. 229

facts, if known, would be that they received solemn
appeals and warnings from people of God, months
and years before the life and character crash came.

It is curious to note that, in addition to the oppo-
sition of the angel, God added pain of a physical char-
acter to Balaam. The ass on which he rode became
affrighted at the supernatural spectacle, ran into the
wall, and ground the foot of the prophet against the
stones. Balaam became infuriated, and smote the
dumb beast, who actually saw more than the prophet
did.

The physical pain always comes with the warnings
of God. To stray out of the order of God's will and
providence is to be continually getting hurt. Things
go wrong. Accidents, as we call them, happen; all
kinds of painful, unexplainable things take place.

In the case of a layman who began to depart from
God, after a devout life, there occurred, one after an-
other, such physical mishaps and narrow escapes of
life that he became deeply alarmed, and flew back to
duty and God.

Not all do this, but become filled with a blind rage
against the very things and beings God sends to
block their way to ruin, and go to striking right and
left, and with a growing fury as the years go by, In
a word, they begin to ripen for destruction.

Not only poor dumb animals feel the cruelty of

230 HEART TALKS.

these maddened, backslidden lives, but innocent mem-
bers of the family. Everybody seems to them to be
blocking up their way, hindering them in their pleas-
ures, pursuits, rights, and privileges; so down comes
the cudgel of word, look, act, and life itself, on bleed-
ing, faithful hearts. Is it not strange that all can see
that God is dealing with them but themselves? In-
ferior minds and natures recognize the spotted record
and doomed life, while he, the wrong and wandering
one, frets over hindrances that have been sent of God,
and pushes on to ruin.

Farther down the highway Balaam encountered
the angel again.

The reader will notice the expression, "farther
down," which we use. The second battle did not take
place on the same ground of the first. God fell back
as His perverse servant pressed on, and met him at
a remote spot.

The idea is, that while the Lord keeps up the con-
test with the disobedient Christian for a while, yet the
struggle is never on the same moral place or plane.
As the soul pushes past God, who is making effort to
stop and save it, that soul is compelled to become
harder and worse for such a course. So the next
warning and withstanding takes place, in a true sense,
farther down the road. And the third battle is still
farther down than the second, the man persisting in

THE FALL OF BALAAM. 23!

evil, God continuing to fall back and withstand him
again, until the time is reached when the Lord steps
aside, and allows the infatuated and determined man
to go on to his destruction.

The disobedient Christian can tell that he is far-
ther down the road, and in the last conflicts with
Heaven, by the lessening power of conscience, and
the rarer, fainter utterance of the voice of the Spirit.
The man, however, becomes accustomed to provi-
dential hinderings, and looks upon them daily with
less concern, and finally with no trouble at all.

There were three more Divine withstandings of
the prophet on the top of the mountain, and each one
occurred in a different place. God did His best to
save Balaam, and put a blessing instead of a curse for
His people into his unwilling lips.

The man said some fine things on the mountain
standing by God's altar. It was the spiritual flaring
up of the human candle before going down and out
in the socket. He was ostensibly in the service of
God; but the drift of his soul toward the forbidden
evil had become now like the rush of Niagara just
above the falls.

Samson and David went down under the power
of women; Judas and Balaam fell through love of
money. The former class of transgressors doubtless
wonder how the latter class could so care for bits of

232 HEART TALKS.

shining metal. In like manner we doubt not that
the metallites, or second class, marvel at the weakness
of the first class, as they succumb to female arts
and blandishments.

Nevertheless, both classes fell, and a fall is a fall,
whether it be over a Bathsheba or a bag of money.
Men are going to hell from both causes. Samson,
David, Balaam, and Judas, all went down with a crash
into sin. Where can be the comfort to any one in a
moral fall in recalling that he did not go down like
his neighbor, or with the sin of his neighbor? If a
half-dozen men have fallen into a deep well, it matters
not a particle whether they tripped over a rock or
slipped on a piece of spongy soil; whether one was
looking at a star, or another chasing a firefly; the
grievous fact is that all are in the well. Think of a
spirit of pride and boasting springing up in such a
miry place as to the manner in which each one got
there ! The whole dispute would be absurd and profit-
less. So, when a man has fallen into moral ruin, what
need to boast that he did not go down like his neigh-
bor, or with the sin of his neighbor? He sinned, that
is enough; and he is down, and that is more than
enough.

Of the four individuals mentioned above, but one
seems to have been rescued, and that one was David.
The Scripture is unmistakable about the ruin of Judas

THE FALL OF BALAAM. 233

and Balaam. They were wrecked on the money ques-
tion.

There is a rapids in Niagara, not only below the
falls, but one above. So is it in life. Just before a
man takes the final leap into sin there is a marvelously
accelerated movement in his life toward moral ruin
that is plainly observable to many, and that corre-
sponds to the Upper Rapids.

When Balaam left the mountain in the last work
he did for God, he was in the Rapids. God evidently
met him no more, but stood aside and let the man leap
to his destruction. And he leaped, or was carried
over the Falls, just as the reader prefers to regard the
matter. The fallen prophet, fully determined to ob-
tain the pay and honors of King Balak, does one of
the most diabolical things on record in the Bible.
Knowing, as he did, that the awful judgment of God
would come upon the children of Israel if they car-
nally intermingled with the nations by the way, Ba-
laam in some manner, according to the Bible, brought
about the transgression between the men of Israel and
the women of Moab. In this way the curse which he
was not permitted to pronounce from the mountain-
top was brought on the Israelites by their own act.

The man was now out of the Rapids and in the
Falls ! In a few days he had entered the Rapids below
the Falls. He had, in a word, yielded to a rushing

234 HEART TALKS.

temptation, shot an awful downward plunge into the
vortex of sin, and soon came to the place and hour
when physical destruction was added to moral ruin,
as the Lower Rapids in Niagara pound to pieces
everything that is borne to it from the Falls.

The Bible tells us that a great battle took place
as the result of what had gone before, in which con-
flict many were slain, and among the killed was Ba-
laam, the unfaithful prophet of God.

May God have mercy on any one of His servants
who has become careless in life, and commenced open--
ing his heart to questionable thoughts, desires, and
ambitions! As yet he is only floating on the stream,
and almost imperceptibly ; but he has left the place of
safety, and from where we stand we can see the arrowy
rush of the Upper Rapids of an increasing evil influ-
ence, hear the dull roar of the Falls of the sin itself,
and see in the still remoter distance the gray, jagged
rocks, and wild, leaping waves of the Lower Rapids,
where disaster and physical death are certain to come.
The heart involuntarily cries out for mercy in behalf
of the drifting soul and doomed body of such a man.
And yet what escape and deliverance can be expected
for one who in steadfast perversity has fought his way
through every warning and withstanding that a pa-
tient, loving God could devise and execute. Still we
cry out, God have mercy!

XXV.

THE MAN NEAREST TO GOD.

T N Second Chronicles we read that a great multitude
* of the Ammonites and Moabites had gathered
against Israel. The situation was so dark and hope-
less from human view, that the people with their little
ones were in humble supplication before the Lord.
The king himself was no exception. All hearts were
anxious, troubled, and looking to God.

In the midst of this protracted waiting, suddenly
the Spirit of God fell upon a man in the congregation,
whose name was Jehaziel. At once he opened his lips
and uttered the most comforting and strengthening
words to the Jews. He told them that God would
deliver them, and that in a most remarkable way. He
bade them be of good cheer, that they only needed
to stand still, and they would see the salvation of
heaven.

The fulfillment of the man's words' will be remem-
bered by the reader. So great was the victory which
God wrought for His people, that they were three
days gathering up the spoil.

From the circumstance of the Spirit of God fall-
ing upon Jehaziel we obtain the startling and thrilling

235

236 HEART TALKS.

truth that God in His work uses the man nearest to
Him. This is not simply a gracious fact, but a most
solemn one, and one calculated to stir the Christian
heart to its profoundest depths. As a truth, it is not
only taught in the Bible, but as constantly proved
in life.

We have noticed merchants on busy days in their
stores; observed managers and directors of work in
a time of rush; and seen old-time masters with their
slaves on sudden calls for immediate action; and in-
variably we have marked that the individual nearest
to the merchant, overseer, or master was the one em-
ployed to do a work or commissioned to bear a mes-
sage. We frequently saw this, but failed to be im-
pressed with its deep significance when applied to
spiritual things, until we brooded over the case of
Jehaziel.

What we see men doing, the Lord does. He uses
the human instrument that is nearest to hand. It is
a principle of conduct which applies in both the busi-
ness and moral world. No one who gives a thought
to the matter but can and must approve. God uses
the man closest to Him. This is the great truth of
the passage! From it we draw several reflections.

First, the mystery is explained of the Divine favor
and use of certain men in the Church and world.

People who have wondered why God blesses some

THE MAN NEAREST TO GOD. 237

persons so abundantly, and why He employs them so
constantly, need marvel no longer with such Scrip-
ture before them. The Divine Hand is laid on the
nearest head. The Lord speaks to the man closest
to Him.

Of course, there were good people in the congre-
gation of Israel that day, as there are in religious
gatherings to-day. But some were nearer to God
than others. The good King Jehoshaphat was closer
than the people ; but Jehaziel was nearer still than the
king. He was the nearest, and so on him the Spirit
of God fell.

We have often beheld similar scenes in Sabbath
audiences and revival-meetings. There are good peo-
ple in the congregation, and some are better, and
there is the man or woman who is best or nearest to
God. On that soul the Holy Ghost is certain to de-
scend. It is as fixed, unchangeable, and faithful a
Divine procedure as God working in His great natu-
ral laws. Indeed, it is a law. Whoever stands nearest
to God will be most blessed and honored of God.
Nothing else can happen to one in such a moral po-
sition. Wonderful place of grace and glory! Who
would not occupy it?

For sidelights to this blessed truth, let the reader
turn to the description of the Last Supper, and ob-
serve that John heard the Savior say things which

238 HEART TALKS.

escaped Peter and the other disciples. The explana-
tion was that he was nearest to Christ.

Let him look again on the banks of the river Jor-
dan, and see the Dove alighting upon Him who spent
whole nights in prayer, and who said, "My meat is to
do the will of Him who sent me." To this day the
Dove comes to the Lamb, to the soul most like Christ.

Another reflection drawn from the occurrence,
which befell Jehaziel, is that here is a Divine testimony
to human faithfulness. The Spirit of God only falls
upon prepared hearts.

This fact utterly demolishes the hope of spiritually
lazy people, who expect to be blessed, and yet fail to
put themselves in the heart, mind, and life position
to be thus honored of God. They wonder why the
glow they see in other faces is not in their own, and
why the spirit buoyancy, inward exultation, liberated
tongue, and unmistakable unction of life is not theirs.
The explanation is that the condition of praying, life
emptying, believing, and waiting has not been met by
them. They have been spiritually indolent, have
failed to plow, harrow, plant, and cultivate, and yet
are looking for a waving harvest and full granaries.

Nothing is said in the passage about any special
devotion of time and energy to God by Jehaziel ; but
the Bible has so clearly taught this to be the indis-
pensable condition of spiritual manifestation and reve-

THE MAN NEAREST TO GOD. 239

lation, that to state God's Spirit fell upon the man is
tantamount to saying that he had been waiting upon,
and living close to God.

The flames of fire, shining countenances, and won-
drous, rapturous utterances of Pentecost, were pre-
ceded by ten days of patient supplication to God in
the Upper Room. The visions of Daniel came; but
not without weeks of fasting and prayer upon his
part on the banks of the river Hiddekel.

Some affect to be surprised and even hurt at the
sudden outbursts of joy, and the Divine use of certain
persons in religious services. Why not themselves?
is the fretful query often asked inwardly, when not
uttered to others. The answer has already been
given, and is also embraced in the Bible statement —
the man who prayeth secretly shall be rewarded
openly. The private devotion is the explanation of
public heavenly honor. The closet of prayer is the
place where the crown and robe are obtained which
make a man appear as a spiritual king when standing
before the Church and world.

A young preacher rebuked a large company of
gamblers on a steamboat with such holy power that
it not only awed the men, but led the rebuker to a
great national honor. The secret of his ascendency
was that he had spent a couple of days in his state-
room in tears and prayer over the matter. Any one

240 HEART TALKS.

could have had a kind of brute courage sufficient to
have condemned the transgressors, and still have ac-
complished nothing. This kind of reproof is cheap,
and obtained at little cost ; but few are willing to pay
the price of two days' humiliation and prayer to secure
the heavenly backing and the Divine favor and power
this man possessed.

A prominent minister of the gospel ridiculed the
doctrine of a second work of grace in a large con-
course of people. There were many good persons
present who disapproved his utterances, but could not
or did not speak in reply. The Spirit fell that morn-
ing upon a young preacher to answer the denier of
sanctification by faith in the blood of Christ. For
thirty minutes by the clock this suddenly appointed
defender of a great Bible truth fairly flamed and
glowed in his presentation of the doctrine and procla-
mation of the experience, while love to man and grati-
tude to God was heard in every utterance, and tears
of joy welled into his eyes and fell fast upon his cheeks.
To many the thought doubtless came, that this man
was a chosen instrument to protect the ark, and so
settled back in the old condition of spiritual laziness.
The real explanation was that the young preacher had
spent several days in special waiting upon God. He,
in other words, happened that morning to be nearest

THE MAN NEAREST TO GOD. 241

the Lord, and so the Divine Hand was laid upon him,
with the command, "Speak for Me."

Nothing in nature occurs in a haphazard way.
Law regulates everything. A Divine Hand guides
and controls according to perfect wisdom, truth, and
faithfulness. In like manner in the kingdom of grace
there is nothing like moral accidents. The same God
presides in both realms. Law is in both worlds.

We talk about the lightning striking at random.
It is not so : the electric fluid falls on the object nearest
to it, and most favorable for its reception. So does
the heavenly lightning. The Spirit comes upon peo-
ple who are prepared for Him.

A brief final reflection we draw is, that none of us
can afford to miss standing in the place nearest to
God. We can without much hurt be cast out of social
circles, synagogues, and places of earthly honor; we
can be displaced from favored positions near the rich
and great; but we can not, without irreparable injury
to ourselves both now and forever, live at a distance
from God. We must for our present and future high-
est good stand close to the Heavenly King, where His
hand can touch us, and His voice reach us at any and
at all times.

It is this spot where is ever to be found the flam-
ing speech, transfigured countenance, unctuous life,
16

242 HEART TALKS.

and beautiful influence, more powerful at times than
words and deeds themselves.

Here John lived, and talked about opening heav-
ens, and said, "Hear what the Spirit saith to the
Churches." Here Paul abided, and spoke about not
knowing whether he was in the body or out of it.
Here Jehaziel must have dwelt. And here may we all
dwell. There is room for us all. But let us remem-
ber that it is not the man who is near to God who is
most honored, but the man nearest to God.

XXVI.
WHY WEEPEST THOU?

THE caption of this chapter was the first utterance
of Christ after His resurrection. Of all things
which he might have said, perhaps no more beautiful,
blessed, needful, and significant speech could have
been made by Him to His sorrowing disciples, and,
beyond them, to the struggling, battling Church in
all ages, and even to the sinful world itself. Since
Christ died and rose again, it may well be asked, why
should any one weep?

The question comes to the penitent, Why weep-
est thou?

Has not Christ died and paid the debt that you
owe to an offended God and violated law? If
He has, why not burst forth into rejoicing and
singing, with the heaven-declared statement that
Jesus has suffered for all, that He died for the un-
godly, that no one might perish, but all have eternal
life?

Every community and Church is familiar with a
character who might well be called "the chronic
mourner." These persons come to the altar at every

meeting and at every call. They will not be com-

243

244 HEART TALKS,

forted, seem unable to get relief, and certainly fail
to receive the assurance they wish to possess.

In a certain city, lately, I was speaking to one of
this class. She was a woman of seventy years of age.
When I tried to bring her help and comfort, she con-
templated me silently for a few moments, and said
with a melodramatic air, "My brother, I have been
a mourner for fifty-two years."

If she intended to astonish me, she succeeded per-
fectly. For a full minute I said nothing, as I looked
upon this living monument of unbelief, this individual
who had persisted in grieving over her sins for a half-
century, as though Christ had never died and paid
the full obligation she owed to Heaven in regard to
the transgressions of the past. I even detected an
accent of pride in the statement that she was a
mourner of such long standing. She was no ordinary
penitent. She had made a science out of spiritual
grieving. She had been so satisfied with the words
that they were blessed who mourned, that she re-
fused to come to the other part of the sentence, "they
shall be comforted." She knew nothing of that. She
was a mourner, called herself one, when in the sight
of God 'she was an unbeliever.

Is it not strange that people who will not look to
Christ for pardon after He died for all sins, can not be
made to see that in this fixed mental attitude they

WHY WEEPEST THOU? 245

make Christ to die in vain, utterly contradict God's
own Word, and discourage hundreds who would
otherwise come to Christ and be delivered and
blessed?

Again, the words apply to those who grieve over
the presence of inbred sin.

While we do not have to repent over the existence
of this principle, we can lament the fact of its being in
us, and should go promptly to Christ for its destruc-
tion and removal.

After its discovery, to sit down and sorrow over
the dark inheritance and fail to come to Christ with it,
is to repeat the folly of the ordinary transgressor who
will not let the Son of God save him.

To those of us who have gone within the veil, and
exercised the second distinct faith for heart-cleansing
or the sanctification of the soul, the days and weeks
of protracted mourning and seeking by some, without
the obtainment of the blessing is simply astounding.
The blood has been shed outside the gate to sanctify
the people; why weepest thou? Let us go forth at
once to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach,
and obtain the unspeakable grace.

We once saw a lady receive the blessing after a
most faithful seeking for it for a few hours. She had
to leave the meeting that night at ten o'clock on the
cars in company with a lady friend. She was fairly

246 HEART TALKS.

electrified with her new possession, and the way into
the Holiest being all plain to her, she bent over her
friend who was at the altar, and who was weeping and
grieving without securing what she desired, and ex-
claimed, while laughing and crying over her and clap-
ping her on the shoulders, "Jennie, darling, make
haste and get the blessing; the train will be here in
fifteen minutes."

Quite a number around the altar smiled at the
speech, but others saw deeper into the words, and to
them it was a paraphrase of what Christ had long ago
uttered, "Why weepest thou?"

When Christians refuse to thus cast themselves on
the atoning sacrifice, it can readily be seen what a
paralysis they occasion to the faith of others who are
not spiritually strong to begin with, or are less exalted
in social and ecclesiastical planes. So we have seen
the slowness of a preacher in obtaining sanctification
throw the entire Church back. Their eyes were on
him as a kind of example, and as he did not sweep into
the Holiest, they reasoned very naturally that there
would be no need for them to try, and that there was
no hope or prospect for them. O ! that all seekers
in pulpit and pew would look to Calvary, and behold
the blood which cleanseth from all sin ! O ! that the
voice of Christ could be heard by these sad, discour-

WHY DEEPEST THOU* 247

aged followers of His, whose highest conception of
the Son of God in redemption is the suppression of
the carnal mind, the keeping of the Old Man in a kind
of subjection !

"Why weepest thou?" Is Christ not able to do ex-
ceeding abundantly for you above all that you can ask
or think? Did he not say, "All things are possible to
him that believeth," and "According to your faith so
shall it be unto you?"

Still again the words apply to the bereaved.

How perfectly helpless all of us have been made
to feel in a place and at an hour when Death has en-
tered and taken away the light of the home ! At such
a time we feel the vanity of human consolation, the
nothingness of human strength.

Once as a pastor we stood in the midst of a fam-
ily who were grouped around the deathbed of a
lovely daughter just grown, and now breathing her
last. We shall never forget the affecting silence of
those moments. No one spoke, but tears fell swiftly
down every face. Each tired, heavy sigh from the
pillow was feared to be the last breath, and when
finally the physician, whose eyes were steadily fixed
on the dying girl, looked up with a sad face and said
quietly, "It is all over," I immediately called all to
their knees around the bed, and in the midst of chok-

248 HEART TALKS.

ing sobs, commended the grief-stricken family to
Him who once died Himself and rose again, and who
said that at His voice all that are in their graves shall
come forth into everlasting life.

Mary in tears at the Savior's tomb is a picture
which appeals to every heart. Here was an attitude,
a burden, a sorrow known to us all. Then comes the
footfall of Christ. His eye rests on the drooping fig-
ure, and His loving voice falls upon her ear — "Wo-
man, why weepest thou?"

How quickly the tearstained face was raised ; how
it flashed and glowed with joy, we all can easily
imagine, when in another moment, with an additional
word from His lips, she saw it was Jesus. He had
broken the bands of Death. The grave could not
hold Him. He had come back to tell the grieving
world of His victory, and that as He had raised Him-
self from the tomb, even so He would resurrect all
who believe on Him.

Since that marvelous and blessed return, and since
the words, "I am the resurrection and the life," how
can there be inconsolable sorrow at the side of the
deathbed, and by the margin of the grave?

"Thy brother shall rise again," said the Savior
to the sisters of Bethany. And we have only to
change the word brother to father, mother, husband,
wife, sister, son, and daughter, to make them sound

WHY WEEPEST THOU? 249

like sweetest music to every grieving, bereaved heart
around the world. No wonder He said, "Why weep-
est thou?"

Once more, the words apply to the heart and life
which has been wounded and injured by human
tongues and influence.

Not only opposition and persecution have come,
but lower, sadder still, misrepresentation, detraction,
and slander are hurled like javelins and boomerangs
at the servant of God. No office or position, and
no religious experience or life of usefulness, is suffi-
cient to protect one here.

The added pain is that oftentimes the blow is
struck, not by a worldly hand, but by one who went
with you to the house of God in company. We have
seen some gentle Christian natures sink, completely
crushed, under this peculiar form of malevolence.

Still we say, "Why weepest thou?" Why should
we grieve hopelessly as though some strange thing
had happened? Was not Christ slandered? Were
not the disciples vilified? Was not Wesley accused
of having broken all the commandments? And are
we to expect better treatment than they received?

Again, has not Christ promised deliverance to us
from this and every other evil? Does not the Bible
say that all things work together for good to them
that love God? Then, "Why weepest thou?"

250 HEART TALKS.

Paul said, "None of these things move me ;" and
we should say the same, and go right on in God's
service.

As for general misrepresentation, there are few
revival-meetings in which every true evangelist does
not see the funeral and burial of various kinds of false
reports. We have nothing to do but discharge our
duty, and "wait on the Lord," and the Bible says
He will bring it to pass. He will deliver us from all
our enemies, and cause us to inherit the land.

How many Christians worry needlessly in regard
to these things! Some workers at times feel half-
paralyzed, heartsick, and tempted to give up their
labor for Christ and souls. My advice to them is to
hold on, hold in, hold up, and hold out.

If a lie is told upon you, make no answer, but wait
on the Lord, be of good courage, and "weep not." If
a misrepresentation is circulated about your work,
methods, family, or Christian life, and a thick door
seems to be shut and locked in your face, do not think
of opening it yourself. Do not lose time and energy
in trying to prize it off its hinges or blowing it up
with dynamite. Wait on the Lord, weep not, be
patient, and suddenly it will open — and God will do
the opening.

Your coat may be bespattered with the mud of
human hate, detraction, or misconception. Mr. Spur-

WHY WEEPEST THOU? 251

geon says, do not wipe it off at once, for that will
simply smear it and make matters worse. Be patient,
he said, and let it dry; by and by it will drop off of
itself.

He will take care of the mud-flinger, the mud-
flinging, the mud, and especially the coat and the man
flung at. He, with His own touch, will brush off the
mire, and show that it did not come from a fall of
the man, but was cast upon him by the hand of an
enemy. "Wait," I say, "on the L,ord." In a word,
"Why weepest thou?"

XXVII.
HOLY JOY.

MUCH has been said and written against what
is called emotional or demonstrative religion.
A great deal of sage advice and warning is given to
people who are filled with the Spirit in such expres-
sions as "Talking one's self empty," "Living one's
religion," "Best proof of being well is walking
around/' and "Thunder kills nobody."

We are not in this chapter championing what
has been scornfully dubbed "mere noise," although
we cheerfully confess that we have not the slightest
objection to the commotion and stir made by people
who are genuinely filled with the Holy Ghost. We,
in fact, like it. We have been heard and seen in these
lines ourselves repeatedly by friend and foe; our
comfort, meanwhile, being that, according to the
second chapter of Acts, there was anything but a
quiet time on the morning of Pentecost with the dis-
ciples ; and John is our authority for saying that there
was silence in heaven only for the space of a half-
hour ; after that, he heard the noise of a great multi-
tude shouting and praising God, and it sounded like
the voice of mighty thunders and the roar of many

waters.

252

HOLY JOY. 253

And yet, with all this, we are not contending
for noise and what is called "fuss." We have listened
to some which we wished that we had not heard.
And yet the Church has not suffered as much in this
way as it has with a graveyard quiet and deadness.

We are speaking in this connection of an inward
condition and life, far back from the lips, in the heart,
and that expresses itself in more ways than one ; some-
times, indeed, with words; but sometimes being
voiceless, but felt always as a penetrating, melting
influence as powerful as any word or deed.

It is a peculiar joy we are writing about. Not
the ecstasy of one of those many refreshings, anoint-
ings, and comfortings that come to the child of God,
and as certainly leak out in a few minutes or hours.
Nor is it the result of regeneration, but of the bap-
tism with the Holy Ghost. It is not the gladness
of the New Birth, but that strange rapture which
comes from spiritual crucifixion and death.

There is a Divine work in the soul which intro-
duces the Christian into the realm of joy as certainly
as justification and regeneration brought him into
the spiritual province of peace. "Being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ. By whom, also, we have access by faith
into this grace, wherein we stand and rejoice."

He who will faithfully regard the spiritual multi-

254 HEART TALKS.

plicands and multipliers of the Upper Room, and the
ten days of faithful waiting and importunate praying,
will beyond every shadow of doubt obtain the product
of a full, steadfast, delicious, satisfying joy to abide in
the soul.

Not all have it ; for not all are true to God's arith-
metic. There is trifling either with the multiplier or
the multiplicand of consecration and faith. The full-
ness of waiting is not observed, the fervor and force
of prayer is neglected; and so they "come short," as
the apostle says, of the great blessing. The cold face,
lackluster eye, hard facial lines, and lack of spiritual
spring and buoyancy, plainly indicate the failure to
the observant, fire-baptized disciple. For some reason
best known to themselves and God, they have not
obtained that blessed result called the Secret of the
Lord, and the Mystery of the Gospel. They can
grasp the idea of peace and occasional overflowings
of spiritual gladness ; but the fact of a constant, abid-
ing, upspringing joy in the soul is beyond their com-
prehension.

The holy joy we speak of arises from a sense of
conscious cleanness, sweet submissiveness to God's
will, and the perpetual presence of Christ in the soul.
With this is felt the nestling of a perfect love in the
heart and the blessed throbbings of spiritual power.

HOLY JOY. 255

Who wonders, then, at the presence of a perennial
gladness and sunshininess in such a heart? The mar-
vel would be if, after such a work, there would be no
such resultant condition.

The outward manifestation of this inner joy is
unmistakable. It may differ somewhat, according to
circumstances and temperament; but with all that,
there are signs of this deeper salvation in those who
possess it that are not to be beheld in the regenerated
man, no matter how true and faithful he may be.

One mark is a peculiar brightness of the face.
Another is a smiling expression. A third is a restful
look about the eyes, brow, lips, and, indeed, all the
lines of the face. A fourth sign is recognized in the
voice, in an indescribable ring and accent which comes
from the heart and goes to the heart. A fifth is a
certain instinctive and instantaneous responsiveness
of the soul to all that is read and preached from God's
Word on this hidden life. A sixth is a spring and
buoyancy of the spirit which makes it difficult at
times to refrain from what might be called physical
demonstrativeness. A seventh is the language of
praise that becomes as natural as the breathing of a
healthy lung. Just as the sin-burdened heart has
words of complaint, fault-finding, gloom, and despair,
so the blood-washed and fire-baptized soul has a Ian-

256 HEART TALKS.

guage that describes and declares its own restfulness,
contentedness, gladness, and blessedness in a con-
stantly indwelling Christ.

If we single out any one of the above marks just
mentioned, and study their effect on the world around
us, we will have at once furnished the most urgent
motives as Christians for seeking to enter upon such
a spiritual life.

Think of the power of a restful face as it is seen
daily unchanged in the midst of the varying circum-
stances of life !

Such a sweet, glad countenance, that of an elderly
woman, who had troubles and sorrows enough to have
crushed a giant, created deep convictions in all who
beheld her. The patient, kindly smile she turned on
her home-circle, friends, and acquaintances, in spite
of her life-burdens, was a call in itself to high regions
of Christian living that reached a loftier note to the
spiritual ear than the trumpet-blast which sounds
loud and clear from Mt. Sinai.

As for the language of praise so familiar to those
who are deeply and genuinely sanctified, the moral
effect is even more powerful. It bubbles up from a
filled and overflowing heart. Language is felt to be
a relief. The lip and tongue are like channels convey-
ing away some of the fullness of the abundantly satis-
fied soul. Oftentimes the quietly uttered "Praise the

HOLY JOY. 257

Lord," "Hallelujah," "Glory," "Bless the Lord," is
spoken in perfect unconsciousness of human auditors.
Men hear the words with wonder. Various may be
the opinions of the listeners ; but there is conviction in
the expressions for them all.

So Paul and Silas praised God in the dungeon,
and it brought about a revival. No astonishment
would have been felt by the prisoners in the outer
prison over the language of complaint and lamenta-
tion. They were accustomed to that. But when two
men in the inner prison, all bloody with a dreadful
scourging, and with feet stuck in the stocks, sang
and praised God at midnight, so that Nature itself
bore witness to the moral grandeur of the occurrence,
both jailer and prisoners alike were brought down
in an awful fear and bitter repentance before God.

The rejoicing and praises of the martyrs as they
were crucified, torn to pieces by wild animals, or
slowly burned to death at the stake, did more to
spread Christianity than all the eloquent sermons ever
preached. A singing, shouting, praising Christian
sank finally into a heap of ashes; but thousands of
people returned home from the awful spectacle beat-
ing their breasts and convicted to their hearts. Out
of this number many would turn to Christ and be
saved. That voice of praise and rejoicing going up

from the curling smoke and crackling flames was a
17

258 HEART TALKS.

divine argument, a heavenly proof, a voice from the
sky itself that could not be answered, doubted, or
gainsaid. And so the blood of the martyrs became
the seed of the Church.

We knew a preacher who was hurled from a large
church and handsome salary for preaching sanctifi-
cation as a direct, instantaneous work of Christ in
the soul of the believer. Instead of complaining, he
went to the man who had cast him out, and with a
joy that he could not keep out of face or voice said,
"I expect to do the best work of my life this year."
The happy look and joyful spirit and speech of the
victim, without any intention upon his part, troubled
the man he spoke to far more than a volume of re-
proaches and complaints. In fact, he talked about
it for months, and said he could not forget it, or get
over it.

"Again, if the joy should declare itself in the action
of the body, there is peculiar convicting power even
in that manifestation.

We would not indorse all the bodily exercise we
have seen. Some "profiteth little," and some is over-
done, and does harm rather than good. But there
have been physical manifestations of the inner joy,
both in pulpit and pew, upon which the Holy Ghost,
who had already inspired the movement, now fell
again with approving power.

HOLY JOY. 259

The sight of David leaping before the ark seemed
to have aroused but one harsh critic, and that was
Michal, the wife of the rejoicing man. But it must
be remembered that she was some distance off, and
was looking through a window, while David was
close to the ark. He was coming up the road with
the Holy Oracles, and in good religious company.
A great deal depends upon being in the procession.

Sometimes cool-blooded Christians in the audi-
ence have wondered at something they beheld in the
demonstrative way in the pulpit. They failed to see
how it could have been done. The explanation is that
they were looking through the window, and labored
under the additional disadvantage of spiritual dis-
tance. The man in the pulpit saw a glory they could
not see, and heard the rolling of the wheels which is
to bring up the ark to Jerusalem.

A preacher was watching another at a camp-meet-
ing. He studied his pulpit movements closely. He
saw him give a leap at a climactic point in the dis-
course. The solemn comment of the observer was,
"that it had cost the speaker a great deal to be able
to do what he had done that day." The man's eyes
filled when he heard the true discriminating words.
He, above all men, knew for himself "that with a great
price he had obtained this freedom." One other thing
he knew, and that was that he never let the great

260 HEART TALKS.

indwelling joy overflow in an irresistible manner by
way of the body rather than the tongue; but the
Holy Ghost used it as an arrow to pierce men and
women with conviction. It is true that the scoffer
might be present ; but so they were at Pentecost ; yet
while some laughed and doubted that day, many beat
their breasts, and said, "What must we do?"

Finally this joy is our strength. The Bible says
so: "The joy of the Lord is your strength."

More and more the writer is convinced that it
is not human eloquence, logic, or wisdom that is to
win the day; that it is not ecclesiastical pomp, cere-
mony, or power which will vanquish the enemies of
God; that it is not scholarship, culture, position,
reputation, influence, high places, and offices that con-
stitute the strength of the Church. We will never
conquer with these things and by these methods. Our
strength is the joy of the Lord ; our invincibility will
be found in being filled with the Holy Ghost.

Men and women drunk on the wine of the King-
dom, intoxicated with the love of God, and whose
faces are shining with a rapture not born of earth, but
sent down from heaven, will be not only a spectacle
but an actual spiritual force, under which the people
will be compelled to go down before God. It did so
at Pentecost, has done so often since, and will do so
again to the end of time.

HOLY JOY. 261

It rests with the Church to say how long the na-
tions shall stay away from Christ, and the world lie in
wickedness.

The victory will never come with the use of carnal
weapons, or by legislation, or by righting symptoms,
or by all the proprieties, moralities, and orthodoxies
of the Church and Christian life. The devil does not
care how proper and orthodox we are, provided we
do not get the Holy Ghost. And the triumph will
never be obtained by quietness, peacefulness, and
peaceableness. It will never be brought to pass by
the forces which lie in justification and regeneration,
and the faithful, excellent lives of good people.

The Church will have to get drunk on joy. There
must be an intoxication of spirit, as the body is with
wine. There must be a bubbling gladness in the
heart; an overflowing of a sweet, holy rapture, that
can not be restrained, but will rush into every open
channel of privilege, opportunity, and duty, and with
sunlit face, shining eyes, liberated tongues, praising
lips, and flying bodies carry the food, light, comfort,
and treasures of the gospel to the starving, benighted,
broken-hearted, and bankrupted nations of the
earth.

Who is it that sneers at an emotional, demonstra-
tive religion, when, according to the Bible, two-thirds
of it is feeling? Look and see — "The kingdom of

262 HEART TALKS.

heaven is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy
Ghost."

Lately a convention of preachers was called in
Texas to ask one another what was the matter with
the Church, and why there is such a dearth of revivals.
Our reply would have been, let the Church seek for
the baptism with the Holy Ghost, be fired and filled
with this holy joy, and salvation will roll over the land
like a deluge.

The Lord's command to his people on the eve of
a great battle was not to take sword or spear, but
to go forth with harps, singing and praising the beauty
of holiness, and that all would be well. The reader
has only to turn to the Old Testament to read the
account of the marvelous victory which followed,
when the people sang, rejoiced, and praised God, and
without using a weapon saw the Almighty mow their
enemies down before their eyes.

May we take the lesson to heart, and at once seek
and obtain the experience which places the harp in
the hand, the song in the heart, the light in the face,
the praise on the lips, and the leap to the feet, and
thereafter see as stupendous victories for God and
His Truth as were ever beheld in the centuries and
ages that are gone!

XXVIII.
"LOOKING UNTO JESUS."

SALVATION is brought to the soul by looking
to the crucified Son of God. It was taught in
symbol before the tragedy of Calvary took place. The
Jews, when bitten by fiery serpents, were told to look
to a Brazen Serpent uplifted on a pole. If, instead,
they looked at the reptile which stung them, or at
the bitten place, or at Moses, or at the Tabernacle,
they all died. But whosoever looked upon the up-
lifted Brazen Serpent lived. It mattered not how far
the man was gone, or how many reptiles had poisoned
him ; it mattered not if friends had to hold up his head
and with merciful finger lift up the drooping eyelid;
the instant the eye fell upon the Serpent on the Pole
the man felt a great rush of life in him, leaped to his
feet, and became sound and whole.

Christ Himself declared that He was the fulfill-
ment of this remarkable type ; that He would be lifted
up on the cross, that "whosoever believeth on Him
should not perish, but have eternal life." Salvation
for a look to Jesus.

Of course, the world wonders and stumbles over

this condition of pardon, men failing to see the justice

263

264 HEART TALKS.

involved, the love that inspired, and the profound
wisdom which permeated the whole infinite act and
sacrifice. They especially stagger over the simple
requirement of a look to be saved. The spiritual
thinker sees far deeper, and knows that the looking to
means also a looking from. He who looks to Jesus
is doing a marvelous thing in the spiritual life. Just
as the eye was turned from crawling reptiles and fes-
tering wounds, from self and surrounding friends,
from the great leader Moses, and the beautiful Taber-
nacle, and was fastened on a serpent of brass hanging
on a pole, and all this done at the command of God,
so the sinner looks away from the devil and his own
sin-poisoned soul, from all hope of self and human
strength, looks beyond the preachers, gazes higher
than the Church, and, fastening his eyes upon the
Crucified One, cries,

" In my hand no price I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling,"

and is instantly filled with salvation, sweet, restful,
and blessed, and knows he has eternal life. It was a
look from earth to heaven, from men to God, from
sin to Christ, and God rewarded it with an instan-
taneous pardon and glorious rush of spiritual life
into the soul.

But the necessity of looking unto Jesus is not

LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 265

ended by regeneration. Paul was not addressing sin-
ners in pursuit of forgiveness, but Christians in a race
for heaven. Even then, in such a blessed life, he says,
there must be a steady looking unto Jesus.

Indeed, the expression is used after every weight,
and "the sin which doth so easily beset" has been
laid aside. Here is a spiritual state which plainly in-
dicates that the second great look has been cast upon
Him who has been made unto us, not only righteous-
ness or pardon, but sanctification. There is a look to
Christ on Mount Calvary, and there is a second wait-
ing and look to Him on Mount Zion. The cross
brings one experience, the Upper Room another.
One is life, the other power. One is a birth, the other
a baptism. One brings peace, the other purity. Both
come from looking to Jesus. They can come in no
other way ; the Bible and life prove it.

And yet after this, when the "weights" are laid
aside, and "the sin which doth so easily beset" is gone,
and we are running toward the goal of glory, the look
to Jesus must be kept up. Here is where the trouble
begins with many. Here is the cause of weakness,
hesitation, and failure in the Christian life — the eyes
have been more or less turned from Jesus. For sev-
eral reasons we are to cast the steady, continued look
upon Christ.

One is for constant cleansing.

266 HEART TALK'S.

We do not mean that inbred sin is left in the heart,
or that sin is being committed in the life ; but we refer
to a blissful experience in which the soul is continu-
ally thrilled with the consciousness of being kept
clean.

A man who does not know this secret of the Lord
said once to the writer, "If the heart has to be cleansed
all the while, then it must be defiled all the while."
My reply to him was, "Yes, just about as unclean as
a clean rock on clean white sand, with the clear water
of a brook flowing over it all the time." He saw the
picture and the idea, and was silent.

By a steady look to Jesus we can keep under the
Blood, and feel every second its cleansing power as it
flows over the soul. We fail to see the necessity of sin,
while rejoicing at the same time in the delightful re-
alization of perpetual whiteness and purity.

Again we must look to Jesus for perfect conform-
ity to Him in all things.

We may have pardoned and purified hearts, and
yet the outward life is left with all its manifold features
of speech and act, looks, tones, gestures, bearing,
manners, and scores of other things that are not nec-
essarily sinful, but need to be corrected and changed.
Sanctification means great light, but not all light, as
some would make it. It means perfect love ; but not

LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 267

a perfect head by any manner of means. It means
that the sin principle is out of the soul; but does not
mean that we can not grow in grace within, or be im-
proved in our ways and manners without.

,The thing to do is to look to Jesus, with the ques-
tion, What would He say, and What would He do
under the circumstances which surround us? Nor
should we be discouraged in not obtaining all the
light at once. We are to keep looking, and blessed
will be the result to ourselves, and marked will be the
improvement in the eyes of those who are proper
judges of spiritual things.

A mechanic or contractor bending over the plans
of the building which is being erected, should be both
a rebuke and inspiration to us.

A musician with his eyes on the notes of a piece
of music, making the fingers to fall just when and
just how the printed sheet before him directs, and
going over and over it until the rendering agrees with
the original; such a sight is a sermon in itself, and
is enough to make every careless Christian ashamed
of himself, and arouse him to greater faithfulness and
Christlikeness.

Christ is our plan, our example and model; and
so the eyes of the soul should be fixed steadfastly
upon Him, that the life might be made to agree in all

268 HEART TALKS.

things possible with Him. Men took knowledge of
the disciples, that they had been with Jesus. So they
can and will note us, if we are Christlike.

Christ has brought a marvelous soul harmony into
the world. Souls are being thrilled, melted, and
drawn to God by it. We are to study the notes that
fell from His lips and life in Bethlehem, Bethany, and
Jerusalem, in Judea and Galilee, in Gethsemane and
Calvary, and reproduce the melody. When we, with
the Gospel before us, and the Holy Spirit within us,
strike the right chords and utter the right note, people
around us both feel and know it. When we strike a
false or discordant note, they also know it.

All of us can recall times when we suffered excru-
ciating pain of a mental character in having to listen
to incorrect playing, and what is called flat or falsetto
singing. The ear, nerve, mind, and heart all partook
together of the misery. Even more painful is the
fact of un-Christlikeness in the words, manner, spirit,
and deeds of a Christian. The appearance of spiritual
vanity and pride, of irritability and uncharitableness,
of faultfinding and tattling, of arrogance, selfishness,
and bitterness, even if only for a moment, sends a
pang through the soul. It was so unlike the other
part of the life song, it was so different from, the notes
given by Christ in the Four Gospels, it had such a
falsetto ring, that all looked up pained, and felt, even

LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 269

if they said nothing, that the music of Bethany and
Galilee had not been followed.

Our only hope is to keep the eyes fixed on Jesus.
This is our duty and our privilege. If we are faithful
here, we will not only realize blessedness within, but
discover we have power without. Men will want us
to bring them to Him who created such melody of
heart and harmony in life within us. And we will
bring them.

Still again, we must look to Jesus for guidance.

With all the power of a splendid intellect, and the
knowledge which experience brings, yet the child of
God is still under the necessity of being Divinely led
and directed in the daily steps of life. This need
springs from the fact of our ignorance concerning
God's plans, our inability to understand people, and
our lack of power to read the future, and know what
is best for us to do.

The Lord has promised to lead the soul whicfi
will faithfully, patiently, and obediently look to and
follow Him. He will guide, He says, with His Word,
His Spirit, and His eye. All these three are men-
tioned in the Scripture, and show different degrees of
nearness upon the part of the soul to God. There is
an undoubted advancement from the "Word" to the
"eye." Just as well-trained servants get so that they
do not need to be spoken to at the table, but a glance

270 HEART TALKS.

will show them what is wanted ; so the Christian first
held in and held back, and only able to go by explicit
statements, conies at last to understand the move-
ments of the Holy Spirit upon the soul, and finally
walks certainly and triumphantly amid a whirl of
duties, conflicts, and perils, guided by the looks of
Christ.

He has promised to guide us in all things, and lead
us into all truth. The leading will not be violent, but
very gentle; it will be a still, small voice rather than
a thunder-clap; it will be recognized as a drawing
rather than a driving; but it will be unmistakable to
the faithful, devoted man of God, and will always
bring one into realms of spiritual rest and assur-
ance.

A good thing to do, when duties seem to conflict,
the road forks, and it is difficult to tell which of two
ways to take, is to wait on the Savior in prayer, and
ask Him to shine on the path He would have us tread,
making it sweetly attractive to the soul, and at the
same time put a kind of fog upon the other and cause
it to have a forbidding appearance. Christ will do it.
We are convinced that He will lead us in every step
of life ; in business, pleasure, marriage, Church rela-
tions, and all, if we fix our eyes upon Him, and pa-
tiently wait for light and direction.

Anna Shipton tells us in one of her books how

LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 2"Jl

Christ allowed her to turn aside from her regular
work to rest a few days in an Italian town, and write
on one of her forthcoming volumes. She became so
absorbed that she went beyond the number of days
she first asked for, and suddenly discovered that the
flying pen had lost its power, and that her brain had
ceased to create. She was wondering about it one
night while wakeful in bed, when a large bird, blown
by the storm from the mountains, gave a scream near
her window-shutters, which sounded like the word
"Direct." Yes, said the convicted woman, that is
just what I want, and have failed to ask for — direc-
tion from Christ, and on her knees in another minute
came the impression she must leave the town. The
next day, while speeding on the train, with a happy
feeling of being in the line of duty, she led a man to
God on the cars, which work of grace led to a still
greater gospel work in another town.

Once more we must look to Jesus for comfort.

We continually need it in such a world as this.
The whole race in its sinfulness and heart-brokenness
wants consolation for that matter. But deeper still is
the need of the Christian, who, hated by hell, cast off
by the world, and misunderstood by friends, is cer-
tainly bereaved, indeed, if he has not heaven to turn
to for consolation.

But this comfort is to be received and enjoyed,

272 HEAR1 TALKS.

and so deep and satisfying is it that one possessing
such a blessing can rejoice in the sorest tribulations
of earth and time.

A distinguishing title of the Holy Ghost is the
Comforter. Christ said He would send Him into the
world, knowing the paramount need for Him. The
Savior also said, "I will not leave you comfortless; I
will come to you."

Different from anointing for special service, dis-
similar to sudden influxes of energy and power to pro-
claim the Word or make some notable stand for duty,
is the sweet comfort with which Christ can fill the
soul. Bringing as it does a perfect melting of the
soul, tenderness of spirit, gladness in loneliness, con-
tentedness to live, suffer, or die, to be or do anything
for Jesus — it is an experience so unearthly, so holy,
so heavenly, as to be beyond the power of verbal de-
scription. Jesus in some way takes the tired, grieved,
hurt, lonely soul in His arms and comforts it.

We once heard a prominent preacher say, with the
tears running down his face, that since his mother had
died he had found a place where he could go and cry
out all his troubles and get perfect comfort, and that
place was the lap of Jesus.

Once at a camp-meeting I saw a business man,
who had been through great griefs and trials, sud-
denly obtain the comfort which Christ loves to bestow,

LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 273

while sitting disconsolately behind a large wooden
column in the Tabernacle. The transformation was
amazing ! Who, when in sadness and loneliness, does
not love a dear one to hunt them up, and with hand
and voice cheer and heal the aching heart? So Jesus
found His grieving servant behind the pillar, and put-
ting His arms around him, comforted him. O, how
the man wept! The fountains of the deep were
broken up, his form shook under the emotion which
rilled him, while his face shone with the light and
peace and holy calm of heaven.

I have seen a father rough to his child, and beheld
the weeping little fellow go to his mother, who, with
soothing words, tender kiss, and embrace, and some
promise of the morrow, would cause the child to com-
pletely forget his sorrow. The little, tear-stained face
would be turned up gleefully to hers, the tongue talk
happily about other things, and the only sign left of
the other experience would be an occasional catch in
his breath, the last sighs of the almost spent breast
storm. And so have I seen God's child struck by the
world and deeply hurt. Then I have beheld him go
to Jesus and look up to Him, and at once get such
calm of mind, comfort of heart, and forgetfulness of
what had been said and done to him, that the face
glowed like a seraph, and any one could see that he

had been caught away from the strife of tongues, the
18

274 HEART TALKS.

pride and wrath of man, and was hidden in the secret
place of the Most High.

We all know what it is to seek human comfort and
fail to find it when the heart is fairly breaking for
sympathy. Some of us know what it is to lie awake
at night with a great sorrow, or walk through the
house while all are quietly sleeping, and have to
wrestle alone with the trouble. The peaceful sleeping
of the household intensifies the loneliness, and adds
to the pang. You walk out on the street, and the
whole town is asleep. Everybody is at rest but your-
self. By and by you come back and sit on the steps
of your own house, heartsick and solitary under the
stars. How far away they seem ! Suddenly it occurs
to you to look to Jesus, and instantly you are filled
with a holy peace and comfort, which would make
words bend and break to describe. The tortured
heart is at rest, the fever has been banished from the
spirit, Jesus has come to comfort you ! He had been
waiting all along for His follower to look up to Him.
He had not been asleep like the household and town,
for His eyelids never slumber. As I have heard my
mother, now in heaven, sing when I was a child,

" Though the night be dark and dreary,

Darkness can not hide from Thee;
Thou art He, who never weary,
Watcheth where Thy people be."

LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 275

Finally, we look to Jesus for reward.

Beyond the approval of conscience, the smile of
God, and the blessedness of godly living, we are told
by the Bible not to look for our recompense as Chris-
tians in this life from men.

The Scripture informs us that the world will hate
us ; that if we live godly in Christ Jesus we shall suffer
persecution; that men will say all manner of evil
against us; that our good will be evil spoken of; and
we will be as strangers and pilgrims in the earth.

More than this, we learn that the closer we live to
God, the less will we be understood ; while enmity will
be encountered, not only from the world, but in the
Church. We will be cast out of the synagogue, and,
sadder still, our foes will be they of our own house-
hold. The circles to which we would naturally go
for appreciative sympathy and reward are seen, under
these words, to be steadily lessening and narrowing
all the time.

To be in a spiritual experience above others, is to
be a mystery to them; and not to be comprehended
in matters of grace and religion, has been equivalent
to the dungeon, stake, and headsman's axe in the
past, and means anything but an easy time in the
present.

The price which Madam Guyon had to pay for

276 HEART TALKS.

holiness of heart was her own beautiful head laid on
the block of the executioner. The cost to John Wes-
ley was mobs, slander, and constant persecution.
While to-day a man who would enter the Holy of
Holies in the Christian life, must lay down his repu-
tation at the door, and consent to be ridiculed by the
world, discounted and struck at by the Church, mis-
understood by his own household, and walk a lonely;
path to heaven.

In view of these things, the man who would look
for reward for his faith and labor from sinners, and
even Christians, is worse than a fool, and doomed to
bitter disappointment.

Tell them your hardships and trials for the Trutti,
and some few will listen the first time, but grow rest-
less under a second recital, and yawn and count you
a bore at the third.

But what we can not find in men, we can obtain
in Christ. He never turns a deaf ear to our words,
or sends us away empty. He rewards both here and
hereafter. He gives the overflowing cup, the anointed
head, and a table spread in the presence of our enemies
even in this world, as a kind of hint and type of the
great unseen eternal reward. Our soul delighting itself
as with marrow and fatness, our spirit kept like a wat-
ered garden, songs in the night, praises in the dun-
geon, companionship in the wilderness, opening

LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 277

heavens on Patmos, and Christ looking us up when
we are cast out from the councils and company of the
synagogue, is part of Christ's blessed recompense in
this world.

As for the reward at the last day, what pen can
describe, or brush depict, or tongue declare the things
which God has prepared for them who love Him?
It is enough to stagger the imagination, overwhelm
the mind, and yet electrify the soul, and make men
leap for joy, to read expressions that are dropped here
and there in the Bible, about thrones, crowns, king-
doms, glorious bodies, exceeding and eternal weights
of glory; and yet realize that these wonderful terms
are but hints in themselves of the reward which Christ
has promised to all who will be faithful to Him unto
the end.

It is natural to look to men, and especially to
friends and kindred, for recompense and reward in the
spiritual life; but it is a mistake to do so for all that,
and sooner or later we find it out. People are too
selfish, or busy, or burdened with their own toils and
sorrows, to give the time to the consideration and
proper treatment of cases which appeal to them for
recognition and help. It is a bitter piece of knowl-
edge to obtain, but a profitable experience when it
comes, and happy is the man who does not sour in
learning it

278 HEART TALKS.

We had best look to Jesus. We will not be dis-
appointed there. We will get all that the heart craves
and the life deserves from His faithful, loving, pitiful
hand.

An old preacher was struck down suddenly with
the pangs of approaching death. For the first few
moments he was bewildered with the confusion and
excitement of his family in the room, the fainting sen-
sations of the body, and the dimness which came upon
his sight. With a trembling, piteous voice, he ex-
claimed, "Where is Jesus, my old, true, life-long
friend?" Then with a sudden burst of sunshine in
his face he said, with a deep, contented sigh, "Ah!
here He is — and now it is all right."

If the writer, before 'drawing his last breath and
sinking into the grave, was allowed to write or speak
but three words to the world or Church, to old or
young, to sinner or saint, to the justified or sanctified,
those three words should be, "lyook to Jesus."

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Attractive Church — Draws the People Together;
XI., Puts People Under Conviction; XII., Will
Have Healthy Converts; XIIL, A Joyful Church;
XIV., A Unit; XV., The Power of the Lord is
Present to Heal the Sick; XVI., A Missionary
Church; XVII., Out of Bondage; XVIII., En-
tering into Canaan; XIX., The Land and Its
Resources; XX., Samson; XXL, Power Above
the Power of the Enemy; XXII., Compromise
and Its Evil Effects; XXIII., Sermon; XXIV.,
The Author's Experience.

Price, 50 cents; four copies, postpaid, $1.50. Special
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OLD CORN

BY

DAVID B. UPDEQRAFF.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I, Old Corn ; CHAPTER II, The Blood of Christ;
CHAPTER III, Cleansing Through the Blood ; CHAPTER IV, Con-
secration; CHAPTER V.The Baptism with the Holy Ghost; CHAP-
TER VI, Is Pentecost Repeated? CHAPTER VII, Power for Service ;
CHAPTER VIII, Mistakes of Simon Magus; CHAPTER IX, "Our
Old Man;" CHAFER X, Crucified with Christ; CHAPTER XI, The
World Crucified; CHAPTER XII, Steps in the Experience of the
Apostles; CHAPTER XIII, Self-Purification; CHAPTER XIV, Unto
Perfection ; CHAPTER XV, A Good Conscience ; CHAPTER XVI,
Shall He Find Faith? CHAPTER XVII, Self-Preservation; CHAP-
TER XVIII, Antagonisms to Holiness; CHAPTER XIX, Spirituality
vs. Ritualism ; CHAPTER XX, Last Promise of Jesus ; CHAPTER
XXI, Divine Guidance ; CHAPTER XXII, John the Baptist; CHAP-
'TER XXIII, An Unexpected Decree: CHAPTER XXIV, Christ's
Coming Premillennial ; CHAPTER XXV, The Parousia; CHAPTER
XXVI, Free from the Law ; CHAPTER XXVII, Serving in " New-
ness " or " Oldness "—Which ? CHAPTER XXVIII, Suffering and
Glorification ; CHAPTER XXIX, Salvation through Sanctification ;
CHAPTER XXX, The Parables; CHAPTER XXXI, Sin Not a Neces-
sity; CHAPTER XXXII, Distinctions; CHAPTER XXXIII, Philos-
ophy of Doubt ; CHAPTER XXXIV, Negative Ritualism ; CHAPTER
XXXV, Trinity, the New Birth^ etc.; CHAPTER XXXVI, Personal
Testimony.

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